VALENCIA-BASED 'super-surgeon' Pedro Cavadas has successfully reconstructed the base of a tetraplegic patient's spine, meaning he can move his upper body for the first time since he was nine years old.
Wilmer Arias' backbone broke away from his pelvis following a serious accident involving a gun when he was a child, and the last few years he has been bedridden due to complications in the lumbar region.
He has been paralysed from the neck down since the accident.
After an operation at the hospital in Manises, the nearest town to Valencia airport, the young man – originally from Guatemala – is now back in a wheelchair and able to move his hands and arms, a vastly improved outcome compared with his previous situation.
Dr Cavadas used a foot bone to connect the spine to the pelvis.
The surgeon has hit the headlines several times in the last decade and a half after reimplanting hands, entire arms, feet, legs above the knee, and faces.
In March, a marine from the US Navy lost his hand in an accident at the base in Cartagena (Murcia) whilst on board a submarine, and was flown straight to Manises where an off-duty Cavadas scrubbed up in minutes and set to work.
The hand was refitted and the marine is able to move it again – in fact, he is expected to have the full use of it eventually.
