Rescue workers and fellow workers, including her sister, arrived at the hospital with the severed fingers wrapped in moist gauze, rubber gloves and ice cubes, according to [Lee Edstrom], chief surgeon in the hand and plastic surgery department. Severed limbs may be reattachable for up to 48 hours if kept on ice, up to eight hours if not. The work is done layer by layer, working outward, from setting the bone, to attaching tendons, to sewing veins and nerves, to finally sewing the skin http://www.carpaltunnel-cure.com/. http://www.carpaltunnel-cure.com/ In this case, Edstrom said, the fingers were so badly damaged that the surgeons weren’t sure which fingers they were attaching to the five stumps they chose. [John Grossman] participated in some of the early “revasculation” surgery at Yale University in 1974. He recalled being part of the surgery team in Boston that in 1981 reattached all eight fingers of a worker whose fingers were cleanly severed in an aluminum cutter. carpaltunnel-cure.com/ The operation took 48 hours.