John Sessoms wrote: >> Mark Roberts <[email protected]> wrote: >>> > Here you are: >>> > http://www.robertstech.com/temp/wrist1.jpg >>> > >>> > 8 screws - count 'em - 8 >>> > (One is mostly hidden in this view.) > >Had a friend who was a motorcycle policeman - got run over by a drunk >while escorting a funeral procession. It shattered his humerus so badly >they couldn't fit the pieces back together. > >Opened him up and sawed the ends off so they'd mate up. Left him with an >upper arm about 3 inches long. > >They put studs in the end pieces sticking up out through the skin and >some kind of torture device connecting them together. Looked like a >couple of big turnbuckles. They did something to the ends of the bone so >they were just barely in contact, and left a splint around the arm. > >Every day the physical therapist would come in and give the turnbuckles >a half turn to to extend them just a little, pushing the mated ends of >the bone apart. New bone kept trying to grow in and fill the gap. > >Took a couple of months, but they eventually got his arm back out to >full length.
It's called an Ilizarov device. They use it for all kinds of traumatic bone injuries and in some cases where they have to remove big sections of bone due to tumors. It's even been used to lengthen (somewhat) the limbs of children with certain kinds of dwarfism. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
