Doctors at the Hospital for Traumatology and Orthopedics in Ho Chi Minh City said on Tuesday that they had carried out five replantation sessions to reattach a five-year-old boy’s right foot, which was cut off by a forklift three months ago.

Medical staff already discharged the boy, a resident of Binh Chanh District, upon his recovery.

After a forklift severed his right foot while he was playing three months back, his family members transported the child with the amputated foot, which had been put into an ice box, to the Children’s Hospital 1 in District 10.

Doctors at the children’s hospital later decided to transfer the child to the Hospital for Traumatology and Orthopedics in District 5 within the second hour after the incident.

They put the amputated foot in a plastic bag and placed it back into the ice box according to the correct method of preservation.

The injured boy’s timely arrival at the Hospital for Traumatology and Orthopedics and the correct preservation of the foot allowed doctors to perform reattachment surgery successfully.

The boy underwent five replantation sessions in total, including foot microsurgery, vein grafting, two times of excision of necrotic skin, and a skin graft, before his foot completely recovered.

Surgeons also timely handled signs of infection on the foot after the microsurgery.

This is a rare successful replantation case as the child is so young that his blood vessels are still very small, making it extremely difficult to perform microsurgery, according to the doctors.

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