'My thumb is a big toe - so I need a larger glove' - Ashfield cobbler speaks about life changing injury
A Ashfield cobbler has been reunited with the surgeon who replaced his injured thumb with his big toe after an accident in his shop.
David Lee was working in his shop, in Sutton-in-Ashfield, when his jumper became entangled in machinery and dragged him in. His thumb was sliced off and despite being put on ice it was too damaged to be reattached by specialist surgeons so his big toe was identified as a replacement.
Now, more than five years on, from the surgery, and the months of physiotherapy that followed, David said it had taken some adjusting but the most drastic change in his life was he now “needed to buy bigger gloves”.
On Thursday, David was finally reunited live on air at BBC Radio Derby with Jill Arrowsmith, the surgeon who carried out his "life-changing" operation.
When speaking to presenter Becky Measures, David said: "I didn't realise how bad [the injury] was, and then my thumb just dropped to the floor - I was like 'right, that's gone'."
He added: “Right under my foot I've got an emergency stop button which I pressed, I thought 'oh this hurts a bit', but I unravelled my jumper and my thumb just drops.
"Emotionally I switched off. Instantly I shouted somebody 'can you just ring me an ambulance please?' And they thought i was joking because I mess about at work."
Speaking about the options he was given he said: "They gave me the options of what they could do going forward. One was to stitch my hand into my hip and let the skin regrow, but if they did that it was going to be months and months for recovery and I didn't like the sound of that."
Surgeons instead removed Lee's right big toe - and he said: "Looking at it now, you wouldn't know."
Surgeon Jill Arrowsmith said: “We so take all parts of our body for granted, but especially our hands - they're such an important part of your life.
"They're how you make your living, they're how you interact with other people, they're how you show emotions, and then when you have an injury and you suddenly can't do that, you lose everything.”
David continues to work at DL Shoe Art The Cobbler at Idlewells Shopping Centre.
When talking about his life post-surgery, David said: "To start with, I couldn't actually use the hand so everything I was doing was left-handed - and I'm not ambidextrous. Trying to just pick up a spoon and put coffee and sugar in a cup with your left hand when you're not used to it was so challenging. I [also] went through a phase… maybe people do notice it, [but] no-one has ever said anything to me. But now I've got to the stage where, you know what? It's a part of me and I just don't care."
As well as living with a new thumb, he was also noticing the surgery had impacted his foot as well.
He said: "I'm stood up all day, so towards the end of the day my foot starts to get painful and sore.
"By the end of the week, I'm like 'this is getting pretty tender now'. It's kind of something that I've got to put up with and live with."