According to internet users, the surgery was performed in order to keep the hand alive with a strong blood supply until it was able to be reattached where it belonged. Chinese doctors have saved his severed hand by grafting it to his ankle, local media reported. Doctors kept the hand alive by stitching it to his left ankle and "borrowing" a blood supply from arteries in the leg. These tissue transfers, which are also known as "flaps," have evolved over the past century from random-pattern flaps with an unknown blood supply, through axial-pattern flaps with a known blood supply to muscle and musculocutaneous flaps. By all accounts, the claim that Tang was able to save a man's hand by attaching it to his leg appeared to be true, but until we can look at the evidence first hand, this claim will remain unrated.

Source: CNN December 29, 2025 16:31 UTC