A meatworker in New Zealand who accidentally cut his hand off with a saw had the operation to reattach it complicated by the fact that he'd previously cut the same arm off in a previous accident.
Bryan Speers almost completely severed his left hand at the wrist while cutting a flap of meat with a bandsaw at Crusader Meats in Benneydale, in the Waiakato district of New Zealand's North Island.
He told the New Zealand Herald: 'I just grabbed my hand and walked down to the office swearing my head off ... I really thought I was going to die.'
Colleagues taped the hand back on and Speers was taken to hospital in an ambulance. However, surgeons trying to sew the hand back on ran into problems - both because of the amount of damage to the limb, and the fact that his arm was still scarred from a previous accident.
Dr Katerina Anesti of the Waikato Hospital said: 'He had nearly cut off the same arm before about five centimeters up his arm. The scarring made it difficult to know what was what.'
The operation was eventually successful. However, Speers is expected to remain in hospital for several more days, and his rehabilitation could take months.
