Surgeons at the Ministry of Health here recently saved an expatriate carpenter’s right hand and left arm that were severely damaged by a motorized sawing machine at his company’s workshop.

In a delicate operation lasting over 12 hours, doctors managed to remove the damaged parts, fix fractures and repair damaged tissue.

Twenty-five-year-old Mohammed Alam, a Bangladeshi carpenter, was severely injured while cutting wood with a jack saw machine. The machine almost completely severed his right hand.

When he was brought into the emergency ward of King Fahad Hospital in Jeddah, the doctors were faced with the dilemma of either amputating his hand or trying to save it.

“It was challenging and time-bound surgery which our doctors successfully conducted,” Emad Al-Jahdali, director of the hospital, told Arab News on Thursday.

He said the doctors had conducted the operation as part of the ministry’s commitment to provide the best care to emergency patients. He urged workers to be careful when operating their tools.

The Bangladeshi worker was brought into the operating theater at 6:30 a.m. and discharged at 7 p.m., the hospital disclosed in a separate statement. It also said that orthopedic and neurology teams successfully reintegrated his nerves, muscles and bone under the supervision of Saggaf Al-Saggaf, head of neurosurgery, Osama Sidam, and two other doctors.

The ministry said the doctors also managed to save the man’s severely damaged left arm in a separate operation. It said that the tissue reintegrated into his body was about 1.5 millimeters thick.

Sami Badawood, director of the ministry of health in Jeddah, also praised the doctors for their intricate surgery.