In April 2009, Brendan Marrocco, a US Army infantryman stationed
in Iraq, lost all four limbs when the armored vehicle he was traveling in hit
an Improvised Explosive Device (IED). He
arrived back in the United States and awoke at Walter Reed Hospital, grateful
to be alive. For the past three years Brendan
has been content with the prosthetic legs he received, but was anxious to get
back the use of his arms.
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| Image from dailymail.co.uk. |
In December 2012, the 26 year old underwent an extensive,
13-hour surgery to replace both of his missing arms. He is first quadruple amputee to have
survived the loss of all four limbs, according to physicians at Johns
Hopkins. The team of 16 orthopedic and
micro vascular surgeons practiced this new surgical technique for 18 months on
cadavers before beginning the operation. The operation consisted of replacing the entire right arm as well as his
left forearm. Surgeons attached the
muscles, arteries, veins, and nerve endings from the shoulder to the newly
attached limbs.
Transplants in general are a very dangerous operation. When a recipient receives a donated organ,
the body may mistaken it as a threat and begin to attack and break it down. To
put the odds in his favor, Brendan was given an injection of donated bone
marrow to help his body recognize the organ and reduce the chance of rejection.
Brendan was one of seven to ever have this new type of double arm transplant.
Although Brendan doesn’t have feelings yet in his arms, surgeons expect that he
will regain sensation in his limbs in 20-24 months. Doctors are hopeful that his operation can
set the standard for future limb replacements.
Work Cited:
CNN Wire. (2013). Iraq vet Brendan Marrocco undergoes successful double-arm transplant. Retrieved
Feb 2, 2013 from:http://www.abc15.com/dpp/news//iraq-vet.
Nye, J. (2013, Jan 29). the incredible scene inside operating theatre as surgeons carry out double arm
transplant on US Iraq war veteran who lost all four limbs. Mailonline.
Work Cited:
CNN Wire. (2013). Iraq vet Brendan Marrocco undergoes successful double-arm transplant. Retrieved
Feb 2, 2013 from:http://www.abc15.com/dpp/news//iraq-vet.
Nye, J. (2013, Jan 29). the incredible scene inside operating theatre as surgeons carry out double arm
transplant on US Iraq war veteran who lost all four limbs. Mailonline.
This is mind-blowing! It's amazing to see what modern science can produce. Imagine waking up missing all four of your limbs. It must be the strangest feeling trying to move body parts that simply no longer exist.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how the skin tone/type differs from his, if much at all (I'm sure they chose a complementary cadaver.) I hope for his speedy recovery.
Do you know if he'll be able to move his limbs during the 20-24 month period?
Well the article said that his nerves will begin to regenerate at about the rate of one inch a month. So I imagine slowly he will begin to regain feeling as well as mobility. His hands will be the hardest and will take the longest to recuperate since being so far from the healthy nerve site.
DeleteThere's hundreds of articles about his surgery on the internet, as time progresses I'm sure they will update the status of his recovery.
This was fascinating. It must have been terrible to wake up and realize that he'd lost all four limbs, but he's very lucky to be alive and to be living in a time that makes this kind of operation possible. I hope everything works out well for him. Thanks for writing about this, it was very interesting to read.
ReplyDeleteYou write this like a natural reporter. The ease with which you transferred information to your audience was just professional. I also think that your use of imagery was necessary to show readers the real complicatedness of the transplant.
ReplyDeleteHow about expanding the post to discuss some of the mental or emotional factors that go along with not only losing limbs and warfare, but such a drastic series of events means significant attention should be paid to mental health, right?
Thank you Professor Quinn, this will be one of the posts I feel I needed to relay a more emotional tie to the read than just pure facts.
DeleteAs of your question I will have to do more research. But also take this into account. He has lived two years without scratching his head or even fix his own hair with the full arm transplants I'm sure his mental state has improved but i will address this in future editing as well.