American doctor returns Vietnamese man's arm that was amputated half a century ago
A retired American military doctor who served in Vietnam kept the hand of a Vietnamese soldier at home for 47 years, which he himself amputated. Almost half a century later, he returned what was left of her to the same person. For this, a US citizen even flew to Vietnam himself.
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1. In 1966, Dr. Sam Axelrad brought a Vietnamese hand home to Houston. It is difficult to say what made American doctors remove the skin and muscles from the amputated limb, and connect the bones with wire. However, it is obvious that not every veteran has such a strange "trophy".
2. Anyway, on July 1, 2013, the doctor handed over the remains of the hand to the "rightful owner". Nguyen Quen Hung, now 73, said he lost a limb in October 1966. An elderly Vietnamese man said that the Americans wounded him near the city of Ankhe, where he now lives.
3. The bullet hit the hand, but the 27-year-old soldier managed to escape from the enemy. For some time he swam away from his pursuers, then hid in a warehouse where rice was stored. He hid there for three days, but he was spotted from a helicopter.
The wounded Vietnamese was taken to an American military hospital, where Dr. Axelrad took care of him. He decided to amputate his shot arm. “When the Americans grabbed me, I felt like a fish on a cutting board,” Nguyen Quen Hung admitted. “They could have killed me and saved me.” After the operation, he recovered for eight months, and then helped American doctors for another six months.
“He probably thought we were going to put him in a POW camp. Of course, he did not expect us to take care of him,” recalls Dr. Axelrad, who went into private practice after the war. He also explained why he kept the Vietnamese soldier's hand. According to the doctor, all these years she was for him a kind of reminder of a good deed.
4. It is worth noting that for a long time Axelrad kept the bones of a Vietnamese soldier in his military backpack. He did not even dare to get into this backpack, but in 2011 he realized that the limb needed to be returned. He came to Vietnam without knowing anything about the fate of the soldier he once operated on. He did not know if this man was alive or where to look for him. That trip did not bring him the desired result, but the American met a local journalist who wrote an article about the lost hand. Nguyen Quyen Hung's relatives saw this article and contacted the journalists, who helped arrange a meeting with Axelrad.
5. Khan said that he was very happy with this outcome: the amputated arm and the surgeon's certificate would help him receive a pension as a war veteran.
6. “All my documents were lost during the war, and the state denied me a disability pension. I hope that my hand will serve as proof enough for them,” he said, also adding that he wants to be buried along with his once lost limb.
The Vietnam War (1964-1975) claimed the lives of 3 million Vietnamese soldiers and civilians, as well as 60,000 American servicemen.
Keywords: Amputation | Doctor | Vietnam | Arm