Youth Severs Hand; UCI Surgical Team Reattaches It

A 15-year-old Irvine boy who accidentally severed his left hand with a power saw was reported in “excellent shape” Monday at UCI Medical Center, where doctors reattached the hand in a 15 1/2-hour operation.

Jason Pinches, a University High School sophomore who plays goalie for the junior varsity water polo team, was helping his father remodel the family’s new home in Newport Beach Saturday afternoon. “He somehow crossed his hands and cut his own hand off” while operating a power miter saw, John L. Pinches Jr., the boy’s father, said.

“I was standing nearby. It was unbelievable,” the father said. He added that his son, whose advanced Boy Scout training included first-aid, remained “unbelievably” composed.

He said his son did not panic and even remarked that the hand needed to be kept cold.

“If a person doesn’t know to be calm, having seen what I saw, you could just go crazy because it’s out of the movies,” the father said. “Except you are looking at it.”

Paramedics were summoned to the home in the 2800 block of Alta Vista Drive in the East Bluff area. There they found Jason “conscious and coherent with the complete amputation of his left hand . . .,” Newport Beach Fire Department spokeswoman Bonny Hanson said.

The blade of the saw severed the youth’s left hand diagonally from his little finger to just below his thumb, doctors said.

His father said he called the 911 emergency number, put the severed hand in a plastic bag and then held his son’s hand high, trying to minimize bleeding.

Paramedics arrived, treated the youth for shock and put the severed hand on ice, Hanson said.

Jason was taken by ambulance to an aerospace firm’s parking lot at Jamboree Road and Bison Avenue, then flown by helicopter to UCI Medical Center in Orange.

A team of surgeons and nurses spent the next hours giving Jason his hand back. The team was led by Dr. Bruce Achauer, one of several UCI plastic surgeons with a national reputation in replantation surgery.

The operation, Achauer said Monday, is tedious and complicated although relatively common.

‘A Little Unusual’

Fingers are the most commonly amputated body part that UCI surgeons replant--an average of one or two a week, according to Dr. David Furnas, chief of UCI’s plastic surgery division.

“This was a little unusual because it was a whole hand, but it is not any more difficult than a finger,” Achauer said. “He (Jason) amputated all of the thumb, index and virtually all of the middle finger and the ring finger where it joins the hand. The small finger was split. We were unable to save that but saved everything else.”

Achauer, who was on a team of physicians in 1974 that performed Orange County’s first replantation of a limb, said Jason’s prognosis is excellent. He was in intensive care Monday night.

“He’ll have movement of all thumb and fingers, but not precise movement and . . . not complete feeling. He won’t be as strong and agile, but he can do the basics,” Achauer explained.

Furnas said physical therapy and full recovery could require a year or more, and Jason’s family said they believe that he is up to the task.

“He’s quite a bright boy,” John L. Pinches Sr. said. “You know, I’m his grandfather, and just talking about it makes me kind of teary-eyed.

“Such a fine lad. I just hope he comes out of it OK.”

Times staff writer Mark Landsbaum contributed to this story.