World’s First Double Arm Transplant: ‘It’s Science Fiction

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On January 12, 2021, history was made. Felix Gretarsson underwent the world’s first double arm transplant. The journey took more than twenty years. How it happened is miraculous.

January 12, 1998.
Felix Gretarsson was a young electrician working in Reykjavík, Iceland.
The then 26-year-old had two young daughters. One was 4 years old, and the other was just 3 months.
Early that freezing January morning, Felix was sent to investigate a fault on one of the power lines in a remote area.
“The weather was minus 11 degrees Celsius, blowing in, in my face.
“I was keeping my head down, just walking and looking for the pole, which had been damaged. It was so hard to see what was happening. But, I went up the one which was meant to be correct.”
“I reached up and grabbed the line, and apparently it was the wrong one. So I got 11,000 volts and 100 amps running through my arms.
“Somehow, there was just too much power, so the full charge didn’t travel through my whole body.
“It jumped between my arms, and to the ground, which kind of saved my life.”
“If it had traveled through my body, it would have gone through my heart, and I wouldn’t be here.
“And another thing that saved my life in this instance, was I had loosened my lifeline – a special rope that was meant to keep me from falling.
“But luckily, it failed. So instead of, you know, being there until I was just burnt to a crisp, I fell down.

“Both my arms were on fire. They were like candles.

“I broke my back in three places, fractured my neck, I think most of my ribs broke loose also.
“So it was not a good morning.”

Perhaps the understatement of the century.
Felix’s colleagues rushed to help him, filling up water bottles to put out his arm fires.

But there was little they could do. The true extent of the damage was revealed when Felix was taken to hospital.

“They took a biopsy and went higher and higher and higher and found no blood flow or anything because my arms were just like charcoal.”

Felix had both arms amputated. But would go on an incredible journey that would lead to him getting the world’s first double arm transplant, thanks to Professor Jean-Michel Dubernard. It is an important lesson about how crucial organ transplantation and donation are.