A man who lost his right arm as a two year-old has been given a new one after 28 years in a ground breaking surgery in Poland.

A team of surgeons from Trzebnica, southern Poland, re-attached the limb after more than 10 hour long operation. The patient is recovering well but doctors say it will take at least 18 months before he can move his new hand.

This is the first such operation in Poland and the third in the world.

Patient Miroslaw Borodziuk lost his fore-arm in an accident on his parents’ farm 28 years ago. He says he does not remember himself having two limbs but has always dreamt about getting the lost one back.

“We have big experience in arm transplants”, says the head of the Trzebnica arm transplantation centre, Jerzy Jablecki, quoted in Gazeta Wyborcza. But it was a technically complex operation because the patient did not use his arm muscles for almost 30 years. There were huge disproportions between the size of his muscles and those of a deceased donor.

The Trzebnica specialists have previously conducted two successful hand transplants. (kk)