Health News
Farmer with transplanted arms gets back on his bike
Jul 22, 2009, 14:01 GMT
Memmingen, Germany - Karl Merk, a German farmer who received two transplanted arms one year ago, said Wednesday he can ride a bicycle and hopes to ride a motorcycle once he can flex his new hands.
Merk, 55, lost his own arms seven years ago in an accident with a maize shredder. Last year he coaxed reluctant surgeons in the German city of Munich to sew a dead person's arms onto his shoulders.
The doctors praised Merk as a 'fantastic' patient who has exercised tirelessly since the 15-hour operation to awake new feeling in the nerves, battled three bouts of tissue rejection and survived a pneumonia infection.
'He's recovering much faster than we expected,' said the chief surgeon, Christoph Hoehnke, in Memmingen where Merk lives and does a tough daily physiotherapy routine.
The July 2008 surgery was the first double arm transplant in history. Merk showed reporters how he can bend both arms and wiggle two fingers on the left hand.
He can prop himself on a bicycle and guide it with his torso and legs. He said he was looking forward soon to grasping things, and some day to controlling a motorbike.
The surgeon said he had advised Merk never to try a motorbike, but added with a smile that Merk probably would.
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