A Turkish worker who had a severed arm re-attached after an advanced 10-hour surgery has praised the doctor who pulled off the incredible job. "If he did not take care of me, I would be dead right now," 47-year-old road worker Paşa Oral said yesterday. Oral's arm was cut off two months ago when his sweater became caught up in an asphalt machine in Turkey's northeastern Rize province. He grabbed the severed limb with his other hand from the ground and went to a nearby hospital with the help of his friends. Süleyman Taş, a plastic surgery. specialist at Recep Tayyip Erdoğan University Education and Research Hospital, together with his team, reattached the arm during a grueling surgery. Oral was in an intensive care unit for one week and remained in hospital for a month under supervision. Dr. Taş warns people to be quick in getting to hospital in these kinds of incidents: "Four-to-six hours should not be exceeded before coming to hospital. Cell death [in tissue] starts after these hours."
