Professor Jean-Michel Dubernard, pioneer of arm transplants, remembers his meeting with Felix Gretarsson, this Icelandic man who lost these two arms during an electrocution on a high voltage line.
“It was four years ago, in Iceland,” says Professor Dubernard.
The electrician wanted to present his case to the French surgeon.
“It was not won, recognizes Jean-Michel Dubernard.
Today, I am glad he was able to be transplanted.
"
Now retired, the one who performed the first hand transplant in 1998 at the Edouard-Herriot hospital in Lyon, then two years later the first double bilateral hand and forearm transplant, was not in the game for this new stage in the history of transplantation, still at the Edouard-Herriot hospital.
A world first which this time includes the transplant of both shoulders and comes as a continuation of the work undertaken for two decades in this establishment.
25 people took turns
To put all the chances on his side, the Icelandic electrician, aged 48 today, had no hesitation in moving to Lyon in 2017 to prepare for the intervention and be on site when the opportunity arose. from a donor.
The big day arrived on Wednesday.
After four years of hope, Felix Gretarsson has just been operated on.
A complex intervention described as "exceptional" by the Hospices Civils de Lyon (HCL), which piloted the operation by bringing together teams of public and private caregivers from the Parc de Lyon clinic and the Villefranche hospital. sur-Saône, the Jean-Mermoz private hospital in Lyon, as well as the Lyon-Villeurbanne Medipôle.
It took fifteen hours to complete this unprecedented transplant, performed by 25 people who took turns with the patient, each in their specialty.
"The operation went well," announces the management of the HCL.
"This is the highest transplant that has ever been performed," explains one of the doctors involved in the operation, confiding that the patient was extubated Thursday evening and "that he is doing very well".
The first days of recovery after the double transplant are crucial and the teams are still patient before claiming victory.
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Because for the Icelandic patient, this transplant is only the first step in a long process of reconstruction.
"It's a real surgical feat, it's a real organizational feat, but the challenge remains to come", warns the surgeon.
Three to four years of rehabilitation work
The two grafted arms are inert for the moment, and it will be necessary to wait for the regrowth of the nerves, as well as long months of rehabilitation, carried out by several teams at the Henry-Gabrielle specialized hospital of the HCL, before Felix Gretarsson can find the use of its members.
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"It will take about seven hundred days before the nerves reach the fingertips, and three to four years of rehabilitation work," said the surgeon.
A challenge that the transplant recipient is aware of.
“He knows all that, we've been preparing him for four years,” says the practitioner, “but he's someone who has shown exceptional resilience after a very painful story.
"