UPMC Double-Hand Transplant Recipient Recounts Accident

Chris Pollock was helping friends pick the last loads of corn at a farm in November 2008 when something went horribly wrong. The Harrisburg native’s left arm got stuck in the corn picker.

VIDEO: UPMC Double-Hand Transplant Recipient Talks About Accident

“My first reaction – take my right arm and try to get it out,” he said.

Both hands were mutilated in the machine and Pollock had to wait an agonizing 30 minutes before help would arrive.

“I wanted to give up and a neighbor showed up. … I realized I lost my hands.”

That was then.

Now, nearly 16 months after that horrific accident, Pollock is the latest recipient of a double-hand transplant at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

On Monday, Pollock, 21, showed off his donated limbs, which he called a “perfect match.”

Last year, former pastry chef Jeff Kepner, 58, of Augusta, Ga., became the nation’s first recipient of a double-hand transplant at UPMC. He lost his hands and feet a decade ago to a bacterial infection.

Pollock said when emergency crews showed up Nov. 28, 2008 to help him, they had to tear apart the entire machine to free him.

Now, he is learning to use his new hands. And although he doesn’t yet have any feeling in his hands, he said it was an easy choice to choose them over prosthetics.

He won’t be returning to work in the Defense Department. Instead, he is looking forward to getting on with his life and encouraging anyone who must decide between a hand transplant and prosthetics.

“I would tell them, ‘Go for it,’” Pollock said. “I wouldn’t have any second thoughts about it.”

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