Claims that a Chinese man underwent surgery so that his severed hand could be grafted onto his leg in order to preserve the limb until it could be reattached to his arm circulated online in early December 2025.
Internet users on sites like Reddit have posted about this particular claim for years, but in December 2025 the rumor underwent a resurgence of popularity thanks to a series of posts on Facebook (archived, archived, archived).
Many posts shared the purported story along with photographs that alleged to show the result of the surgery in question.
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.
One post called the surgery “a miracle shaped by hope and determination.”
The claim that a surgeon saved an injured man’s severed hand by temporality grafting it to his leg and later reattached it to his arm was widely reported as a success by the news media when it allegedly occurred in December 2013. Snopes has not been able to review documentation of the surgery ourselves, so we have left this claim unrated, though widely available reporting and photographs suggested the claim was true.
The surgery purportedly occurred at a hospital in Changsha, China, in which an injured worker, Xie Wei, lost his hand while operating a machine.
A series of graphic photographs available for viewing on the reputable image repository Getty Images dated Dec. 4, 2013, appeared to be the origin of some of the images shared in the above social media posts.
Getty captioned each photo with the below:
This picture taken on December 4, 2013 shows Xie Wei’s hand grafted to his ankle in a hospital in Changsha, central China’s Hunan province. Chinese doctors have saved his severed hand by grafting it to his ankle, local media reported. Xie Wei lost his right hand in an accident at work but could not have it reattached to his arm right away. Doctors kept the hand alive by stitching it to his left ankle and “borrowing” a blood supply from arteries in the leg. Later they managed to replant the hand back on his arm.
China Daily also published an array of photographs of the procedure in December 2013.
Snopes reached out to Dr. Juyu Tang, reported to have been the one who conducted the surgery in question, for comment and a request for available documentation of the procedure.
Tang was listed on the faculty page for Xiangya Medical College, Central South University, which was described as having “well-known microsurgical experts.” Additionally, the faculty page noted Tang was “chief physician, bone science professor, doctoral research tutor” and “current director and deputy director of the Department of Orthopedics, Xiangya Hospital, Central South University,” located in Changsha.
Tang was mentioned by name as the surgeon responsible in some reports from the time from outlets like the BBC, CNN, NBC News, Yahoo, The Toronto Star, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) and China Daily.
One particular photograph on Getty Images depicted a doctor who appeared to match the faculty photo of Tang on the Xiangya Medical College website. In 2015, CNN published an image gallery from the surgery, which included some of the Getty Images photos as well as other photos identifying Tang.
Further, a list of Tang’s published research on ResearchGate, a database for scientific research papers, clearly depicted his focus of study in skin graft techniques and tissue reconstruction. Tang’s faculty page stated his focus of research as “the basic and clinical study of allograft composite tissue transplantation” and the “basic and clinical study of perforator flap [techniques].”
Perforator flaps, put simply, is a method of reconstructive surgery by which tissue from elsewhere on the body is used, such as the procedure allegedly performed by Tang.
A 2008 editorial in “The Medscape Journal of Medicine” by Steven Morris noted “the quest has always been to find the best tissue transfer with a dependable blood supply, which can be transferred reliably to close a defect”:
Perforator flaps have become increasingly popular in reconstructive microsurgery. To close soft-tissue defects left by trauma or after the excision of tumors, reconstructive surgeons have employed a number of surgical techniques. 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.
The December 2013 CNN report stated that the victim “recovered without complications” and his employer paid for the surgery, “which cost about 300,000 Chinese yuan, or about $49,400.”
The Toronto Star quoted a University of Toronto plastic surgery professor, Dr. Dimitri Anastakis, who said of the surgery, “We’ve done comparable things at the University of Toronto… I’m impressed with the creativity… I’m impressed with the drive to save the person’s hand and restore function… It’s particularly cool… In China, they do phenomenally creative work.”
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.
Sources
9 Hand Graft To Leg Photos & High Res Pictures – Getty Images. https://www.gettyimages.com/search/2/image?agreements=&family=editorial&phrase=hand%20graft%20to%20leg&sort=mostpopular&phraseprocessing=excludenaturallanguage. Accessed 22 Dec. 2025.
“A Race to Save a Hand.” CNN, 24 July 2015, https://www.cnn.com/2015/07/24/health/gallery/zhou-severed-hand-operation.
Chinese Man Has His Right Hand Grafted to Leg[5]- Chinadaily.Com.Cn. https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/photo/2013-12/17/content_17180637_5.htm. Accessed 22 Dec. 2025.
“Chinese Man’s Leg Proves Handy Solution after Arm Severed.” Yahoo News, 17 Dec. 2013, https://sg.news.yahoo.com/chinese-man-39-leg-proves-handy-solution-arm-100816299.html.
Christensen, Jen. “Doctors Save Hand by Attaching It to Man’s Calf.” CNN, 17 Dec. 2013, https://www.cnn.com/2013/12/17/health/china-hand-leg.
“Hand Reattached after Being Kept Alive on Leg.” ABC News, 17 Dec. 2013. www.abc.net.au, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-12-17/an-china-hand-surgery/5162990.
Juyu Tang, MD, PhD (Hand & Microsurgery) – Journal of Xiangya Medicine. https://jxym.amegroups.org/user/view/60016/112. Accessed 22 Dec. 2025.
Morris, Steven. “Perforator Flaps: A Microsurgical Innovation.” The Medscape Journal of Medicine, vol. 10, no. 11, Nov. 2008, p. 266. PubMed Central, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2605127/.
Perforator Flap – an Overview | ScienceDirect Topics. https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/perforator-flap. Accessed 22 Dec. 2025.
Pioneering Surgery Saves Man’s Severed Hand |Society |chinadaily.Com.Cn. https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2013-12/18/content_17183260.htm. Accessed 22 Dec. 2025.
Reporter, Peter Edwards Staff. “Why China’s Doctors Seem to Perform Such Wild Transplants.” Toronto Star, 18 Dec. 2013, https://www.thestar.com/life/why-china-s-doctors-seem-to-perform-such-wild-transplants/article_3bf55c4c-0712-5b3d-a90d-68e30191afff.html.
“Severed Hand Attached to Man’s Ankle to Keep It Alive.” NBC News, 17 Dec. 2013, http://www.nbcnews.com/news/photo/severed-hand-attached-mans-ankle-keep-it-alive-flna2D11758509.
“Severed Hand Kept Alive on Man’s Ankle.” BBC News, 16 Dec. 2013. Health. www.bbc.com, https://www.bbc.com/news/health-25405543.
中南大学 Tangjuyu. https://faculty.csu.edu.cn/tangjuyu/en/index/7318/list/index.htm. Accessed 22 Dec. 2025.
