Soldier who lost 4 limbs has double-arm transplant
On Facebook, he describes himself as a “wounded warrior…very wounded.”
Brendan Marrocco was the first soldier to survive losing all four limbs in the Iraq War, and doctors revealed Monday that he’s received a double-arm transplant.
Those new arms “already move a little,” he tweeted a month after the operation.
Marrocco, a 26-year-old New Yorker, was injured by a roadside bomb in 2009. He had the transplant Dec. 18 at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, his father said Monday.
Alex Marrocco said his son does not want to talk with reporters until a news conference Tuesday at the hospital, but the younger Marrocco has repeatedly mentioned the transplant on Twitter and posted photos.
“Ohh yeah today has been one month since my surgery and they already move a little,” Brendan Marrocco tweeted Jan. 18.
Responding to a tweet from NASCAR driver Brad Keselowski, he wrote: “dude I can’t tell you how exciting this is for me. I feel like I finally get to start over.”
The infantryman also received bone marrow from the same dead donor who supplied his new arms. That novel approach is aimed at helping his body accept the new limbs with minimal medication to prevent rejection.
The military sponsors operations like these to help wounded troops. About 300 have lost arms or hands in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Unlike a life-saving heart or liver transplant, limb transplants are aimed at improving quality of life, not extending it. Quality of life is a key concern for people missing arms and hands — prosthetics for those limbs are not as advanced as those for feet and legs.
“He was the first quad amputee to survive,” and there have been four others since then, Alex Marrocco said.
The Marroccos want to thank the donor’s family for “making a selfless decision … making a difference in Brendan’s life,” the father said.
Brendan Marrocco has been in public many times. During a July 4 visit last year to the Sept. 11 Memorial with other disabled soldiers, he said he had no regrets about his military service.
Posted by Becky Brooks
on Jan 29 2013.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the
RSS Feed.
Both comments and pings are currently closed.