Chris King describes getting his life back since surgery last year, as surgeon says he has progressed faster than anticipated

The first person in the UK to undergo a double hand transplant has said writing a letter to thank his surgeon has been one the highlights of his first nine months since the operation – that, and being able to applaud his favourite rugby league team.



Chris King, 57, described how he had got his life back since the surgery last July, when he became the second person to have a hand transplant at the UK’s specialist centre for the operation at Leeds General Infirmary (LGI) and the first to have both hands replaced.

King, from Rossington near Doncaster, said he can now do a range of tasks, including writing, making tea and gardening, as he progresses faster than his surgeon anticipated. He said he was improving every week and that his next aims were to tie his shoelaces and button up his shirt (he has already cracked undoing them).

Looking at his hands, King said: “They are my boys, they really are. It’s been going fantastically. I can make a fist, I can hold a pen, I can do more or less the same functions as I could with my original hands. There are still limitations, but I’m getting back to the full Chris again.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest King has his hands examined by Prof Simon Kay, the surgeon who performed the transplant. Photograph: Danny Lawson/PA

King has also discovered that he is now ambidextrous. “When I picked a pen up first time, it was with my right hand,” he said. “The next time I picked it up, it was left. I might be able to write with both hands now.” He said: “I think it will be the icing on the cake when I can do my laces, and I don’t think that’s far off.”

King lost both his hands, except the thumbs, in an accident involving a metal-pressing machine at his workplace in Doncaster four years ago. Consultant plastic surgeon Prof Simon Kay, who carried out the operation and two other hand transplants, believes the operation could become as routine as a kidney transplant. He said he was amazed to receive a handwritten Christmas card and thank-you letter from King.



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Mark Cahill, 55, became the first hand transplant patient in 2012 at LGI, and a third man, who has not been named, became Kay’s third successful transplant patient earlier this year when he was given two new hands and a new forearm. Two female patients are scheduled for surgery at the LGI as soon as donors become available.

Kay said: “The programme is now well established. It’s now become mature. We understand the indications, the process. We now have three transplant patients completed and another two to go. We would like hand transplantation to be as routine and unremarkable as kidney transplantation.”



Facebook Twitter Pinterest King with a cup of tea. He lost both his hands in an industrial accident four years ago. Photograph: Danny Lawson/PA

Last year, NHS England awarded Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust the contract to become the UK’s specialist centre for hand transplants.



Referring to King, Kay said: “He’s proved to be, as he proved right at the beginning, a very robust, resilient patient, very enthusiastic about his hands, and I think he’s absolutely delighted. When you bear in mind he will go on improving for another two years, he’s really remarkable – a real vindication for the surgery he’s had. He’s doing more, sooner than we expected. He’s well ahead of our expectations.”

A spokesman for Leeds General Infirmary said that one of the risks associated with hand transplant surgery was the psychological impact on the patient of having a deceased person’s limb become part of their own body. “Your hand is always in you sight and there is psychological support given to a patient so they don’t find their new hand too alien.

“For example, you may feel that the hand is the wrong size or their maybe other issues that makes you think ‘that’s not my hand’.

“There’s psychological intervention in place to help a patient process what they will go through when they have this surgery.”

Cahill, a former pub landlord from Greetland, near Halifax, West Yorkshire, has since gained almost complete use of his transplanted hand. He reportedly used it to save his wife’s life last year after she had a heart attack.

Kay urged people to consider the need for future donors. Donating hands is not yet an option on the organ donor card, but it can be discussed with potential donors if the opportunity arises, a spokeswoman for the NHS’s organ donor register said.

The spokeswoman added it was much more difficult to find a suitable donor for a hand than for an organ. “Potential hand donors are initially assessed in terms of blood group, skin tone and hand size. Because of this, matches occur only rarely.

“Only the families of those donors whose criteria match that of the recipients who have been selected to receive a hand transplant will be asked,’ she said.