A double hand transplant has made an eight-year-old Maryland boy the first to receive that. All it took was nearly 11 hours and a medical team of 40. Steel plates were used by the medical team during the hand re-attachment operation.

They used screws to fasten old bones to new. Zion Harvey’s arteries, veins, muscles, tendons and nerves were also reconnected by the surgeons at The Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia.

In a press conference, the surgeons said that they performed the operation earlier in the month after finding a donor.

Tags were created by the medical staff with descriptions such as ‘ulnar artery’. They attached them to the various vessels, bones, nerves and tendons, said Dr. Scott Levin, director of the hand transplant program at The Children’s Hospital.

Harvey’s hands and feet were amputated after he contracted a life-threatening sepsis infection as a toddler. He used his forearms to write, eat and play video games.

“I hope he’s the first of literally hundreds or thousands of patients that are going to be afforded this surgery”, Dr. Levin said. Many patients have received double hand transplants in the past few years in the US, but Harvey is the first child who has received the reattachment.

Dr. Levin said the surgery has yielded promising results for use on more children who need limbs. Over next few weeks, Harvey will undergo rigorous hand therapy several times per day.