Baltimore Surgeon Saves Drummer's Hand After Accident Threatened His Ability To Play
BALTIMORE (WJZ) — After a workplace accident, a Virginia man was told by doctors his left hand was gone forever.
But he didn't lose hope, and neither did the surgeon that treated him in Baltimore.
Juan Carlos Hernandez, a drummer, said that more than half of his life has been about music. That thought was one of the first things that ran through his mind as he watched his left hand lying on the ground, detached from his body.
"Accidentally, the indication wasn't clear and the machine came down and my hand was cut off," Hernandez said.
Juan Carlos was at work last week at a sheet metal plant in Virginia when an accident injured him. He said everyone was so in shock they almost left his hand behind as they rushed him to a local hospital.
He never lost consciousness despite severe blood loss.
"The only thing I wanted was for them to save my hand," Hernandez said.
But, it didn't look good. Doctors told him his hand could not be saved, until his boss made a call and before he knew it he was being flown for emergency surgery at the Curtis National Hand Center in Baltimore.
"You never know if you can save it, but sometimes you just have to try," Dr. Ryan Katz said.
Dr. Katz tried for about 13 hours as the lead surgeon on Hernandez's case, and he succeeded.
"It makes me feel good and being able to share that with the patient and the family is why many of us do what we do here," Katz said.
Hernandez is now more than a week out of that surgery and is now able to move his fingers easily.
"Yeah, definitely day of thanks, because this is indeed a miracle," Hernandez said.
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