Earlier this year, a female factory worker in Shandong, China, was involved in a terrible work accident where her hair became entangled in heavy machinery that ended up tearing off her left ear, her scalp and part of the skin on her face. Although the accident didn’t endanger the woman’s life, it left her in need of reconstructive surgery, including the reattachment of the ear.
Upon examining the woman’s wound, doctors decided that her ear couldn’t be immediately reattached to its original place because of the damage to the blood vessels supplying it. To maximize the chances of a successful reattachment, it first needed to be fostered back to health. They chose the instep of her foot as the best place to nurse the ear back to health because the skin in that area is thin and the blood vessels are similar in diameter to those on the ear, which facilitates transplantation.
The tiny blood vessels in the ear are only 0.2 to 0.3 millimeters apart, which made connecting them to the blood vessels on the insole of the patient’s foot a nightmare for the team of surgeons. They worked for 10 hours, suturing every blood vessel, using needles and thread thinner than a human hair. The first few days were critical, as the blood flow wasn’t perfect, but doctors managed to stabilize the transplant, and the ear regained its healthy pink color.
Over the next five months, the unnamed woman wore her left ear on the insole of her foot, wearing only loose shoes to avoid pressure when going out, and walking just fast enough to promote blood circulation. During this period, the transplanted skin on her head also gradually adhered, awaiting the final repositioning surgery.
In October, a team of surgeons attempted to reposition the woman’s ear back in its original place, but it proved a very difficult task. Because of the twisted and deformed blood vessels and nerves on the woman’s scalp, doctors had to dissect the tissue layer by layer under a microscope to find usable blood vessels and nerves before connecting them to those in the ear. After five painful months, the woman’s left ear finally returned home.
