Stony Brook Docs Reattach Man's Hands After Accident

A Staten Island man did his best Wednesday to give a thumbs up to Stony Brook University Hospital doctors who reattached both his hands after an industrial accident. 

Kenneth Klapak, 53, is a sheet metal worker who had both his hands nearly severed off in an accident on May 16 while working for Anron in North Babylon. 

Klapak said he was using a automatic power bender to mold a piece of sheet metal, following all normal safety procedures, when he realized something had gone wrong.  

"I had only a split second to react. It caught my hands as I was pulling them out of the machine," he said. 

Dr. Jason Ganz, a Stony Brook hand surgeon, said both of Klapak's hands were nearly severed off, only attached by the flexor tendons that make the fingers bend.

Ganz and Dr. Mark Epstein, a Stony Brook plastic surgeon specializing in hand surgery, led two teams who worked for more than 8 hours of microsurgery to reattach both hands. Their efforts included replacing a damaged nerve with one grafted from a frozen cadaver. 

"This is like our Super Bowl. It's where all the practice you put in all year long reattaching smaller parts pays off," Ganz said. 

Epstein said hand amputations, like Klapak's, are extremely unusual with Stony Brook handling only one case each year, or every other. It is an injury more commonly seen in countries with less stringent professional safety practices, like Taiwan. 

Klapak said with more than 12 years experience as a sheet metal worker, he knew this type of injury was always a possibility. 

"In the trade I'm in, there's the reality of an accident. You take the risk the minute you pick up a hammer. It's a dangerous profession," he said. 

Stony Brook doctors said the extent to which Klapak will regain use of his hands will largely depend on his motivation, with future surgeries for revisions and therapy ahead. 

Klapak, a guitar player since age 7, who now enjoys playing for his church the International Christian Center, has set his goals high. 

"I was told the prognosis wasn't good, but I won't settle for that. I will work at it," he said. "What I have here is an ongoing miracle." 

Stony Brook University Hospital has successful reattached a double-hand amputation for Arsenio Mathias last in 2005, according to Dr. Alexander Dagum, Stony Brook's interm chair of surgeon and plastic surgeon. Mathias can now use his hands for driving, talking on a cell phone and other every day tasks.