8 Year-Old Boy's Revolutionary Operation Has Changed His Life Forever
August 6, 2015
For most of his life, Zion Harvey has dreamed of having hands. Thanks to a medical miracle, it's finally come true.
In a surgical first, Philadelphia doctors have transplanted donor hands and forearms onto an 8 year-old boy whose own hands were amputated when he was a toddler due to a life-threatening bacterial infection.
Zion told NBC News that he can't wait for the day he holds his little sister with his new hands.
"My favorite thing [will be to] wait for her to run into my hands as I pick her up and spin her around," he said.
Photo: The Children's Hospital of Philadephia
A 40-member transplant team led by Dr. L. Scott Levin had practiced extensively on cadavers before attempting the operation - a worldwide first - on a child.
Doctors believe the success of this surgery may have profound changes on the lives of children who are living without hands.
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