#1 The woman who grew a new ear on her arm
Doctors at Johns Hopkins have successfully grown an ear on a woman’s arm. SherrieWalters, 42, had an ear grown on her arm to replace one removed after developing bassal cell carcinoma in 2008. The illness meant that she had her ear, a piece of her skull and her ear canal removed.
She is now the first person ever to have their ear regrown using cartilage taken from her rib. The team of surgeons, led by Dr. Patrick Byrne, took rib cartilage to shape a new ear, according to Red Orbit. In an experimental procedure, it was placed under the skin and allowed to grow for four months before being transplanted into her head.
The former beauty queen who had her skull temporally attached to her stomach
A former beauty queen was shocked as she awoke to find a portion of her head missing after having a quarter of her skull removed and then stored in her stomach for six weeks after a near-fatal fishing accident. Surgeons removed the rear quarter of Jamie Hilton’s skull and placed it in her abdomen, which enabled the bone to remain sterile and nourished while brain swelling from a head injury subsided.
Mrs. Hilton, 36, had won Mrs. Idaho in 2009 and competed in the Mrs. America beauty contests. Mrs Hilton’s skull remained in her abdomen for 42 days until it was re-attached in a successful operation and then, three months after hernear death experience, she returned home, and is considered a ‘walking miracle.’
The little girl who saved her hand by having it grafted to her leg
Ming Li, 9, had her hand severed after a tractor ran over it while she was walking to school in July 2010. Doctors said it was too badly damaged to put back on her arm so they attached it to her right leg. After three months, the hand was reattached to her arm. Dr Hou Jianxi, from the hospital where Ming is being treated in Zhengzhou, Henan Province, said her hand was repairing well and that the blood was flowing normally through her hand.
She was able to move her wrist but will need more operations over the next two years to remove scars and improve its movement, he said.
The man who grew a fingertip on his stomach
Doctors in China saved a man’s partially-severed finger – by attaching it to his stomach. Furniture worker Wang Yongjun, 20, cut off the end of his middle finger with an electric saw in an accident at work. Wang, of Liaoyang, Liaoning Province, was rushed to the hospital where doctors had to think fast. Dr Huang Xuesong said the muscle and skin had been cut away from the end of his finger leaving only the bone showing.
Doctors operated and attached Wang’s finger to his stomach in the hope that new skin and muscle would grow around it. Dr Huang said the technique was a way of restoring blood circulation to the injured finger so that the body could repair itself. He says the surgery was a complete success and that Wang would have a brand new fingertip – separated from his stomach – within a month.
