Hand Transplant Recipient: 'This is Like Science Fiction'

March 15, 2010— -- A Harrisburg, Pa., man who lost both hands in a farming accident is now recovering after having become the first man in U.S. history to get a transplanted arm and forearm.

"You know, this is like science fiction," Chris Pollock, a mechanic and National Guardsman, said on "Good Morning America." "This is, like, 20 years ago ... this was only thought of, and now it's for real."

Pollock was out picking corn late in 2008 when the tractor he was riding malfunctioned. The 41-year-old father of twins stopped to take a look and his coat got caught in the machine's rollers, dragging his left hand in.

"I reached over with my right hand and tried to pull out my left hand and it got caught. I thought, 'God, just let me die,'" he recalled.

After about 30 minutes, a neighbor heard Pollock's screams and called for help. Pollock was airlifted to Hershey Medical Center.

He was fitted with prosthetic hands, but could not feel his children's touch.

Then, one day, he read an article about the opportunity to receive a hand transplant through the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, and he applied.

But finding a perfect match takes more than just the right blood type. The perfect match needed to come from a man with the same sized hands and skin color. On his right side, Pollack needed a new elbow and forearm in addition to a hand.

For Pollock, though, his breakthrough came only two months after he applied -- a little over a year after his accident.

He got a late-night phone call notifying him that donor hands had been found. The very next morning -- Feb. 5 -- he was in surgery.

Twenty-one surgeons working on four operating tables began the transplant. First, they removed his arm below the right elbow because it was damaged, replacing it with a new elbow and forearm.

Then, on to the left arm, and a complex series of procedures requiring the precise and painstaking connection of bones, tendons, nerves and arteries.

Dr. W.P. Andrew Lee, head of the hospital's plastic and reconstructive surgery division, said the medical team experienced a moment of "relief and joy" when blood started flowing for the first time to the transplanted hand and the previously pale tissues turned pink.