Last month, a teenager employed at an upstate NY Italian restaurant severed his arm while cleaning an industrial pasta maker. Brett Bouchard, 17, was cleaning the machine at Violi's Restaurant on April 24th when his right arm became caught and was severed at the elbow. "It wasn't a sharp cut," one of his surgeons, Dr. Kyle Eberlin, told CBS. "His arm had actually been sort of pulled off which makes it a more difficult injury to treat." Despite that, doctors were able to reattach the arm.
After the incident, Bouchard put a tourniquet on his arm, and was airlifted to Massachusetts General Hospital where a team of surgeons assembled to try to come up with a plan to reattach the arm. He's had four surgeries over the last month: "It has been done before, but it's not a very common operation," Eberlin said.
Doctors are confident that he'll get some use back, although there'll be a lot more surgeries (and physical therapy) in his immediate future: "Because of his age he has a chance to re-grow his nerves very well, and have sensibility at the end of his replanted arm," said surgeon Dr. Curtis Cetrulo. "Our plan is to take a muscle from his groin that's sacrifice-able and connect the nerve up so that when that muscle fires, he can move his arm."
Bouchard's family has started a YouCaring fund to aid in paying for his medical bills and recovery. "He's not going to be a piano player, but he should have some function and feeling in that hand. And that's the goal," said his mother, Rebecca Martin. Bouchard also seems moved by the outpouring of support: "It's given me a new outlook on life," he said. "It's making me appreciate things a lot more, and I never knew how much people cared."
