Lucknow, Jun 2 (IANS): Doctors at the Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences (SGPGIMS) have re-attached two fingers of a nine-year-old boy to his hand, which he has lost in a recent accident.

The child is doing well and is recovering after a long surgery.

Shlok Yadav, a resident of Murjam Nagar on Sultanpur Road, lost his fingers while playing near an automated saw installed in his house.

Unknowingly, he put his hand near the blade, resulting in two fingers of his right hand getting severed completely. The accident took place on Tuesday, and the child was rushed to the SGPGI trauma centre.

The surgery began immediately and lasted seven hours at the end of which both fingers were reattached to the stumps in the hand.

Dr Rajeev Agarwal, head, plastic surgery, SGPGI said: "Reattachment is a surgery where the cut finger, hand or any part of the body is surgically re-attached to its place by modern plastic surgery. The technical term for reattachment is replantation.

"In replantation, the time elapsed from the injury to treatment is important. The ideal time to perform reattachment surgery is within six hours of injury. The severed part of the body does not have blood supply, oxygen, or nutrients to support the tissue. Therefore, progressive tissue injury occurs over time."

Agarwal said that there are options to help increase replantation chances.

"It is very important to correctly preserve the cut part. It should be rinsed quickly with water or saline. The part should then be wrapped in wet gauze and put in a sealed plastic bag. This bag should be placed in ice water/ice. This is important to slow the process of degeneration," he said.