A home center employee who severed his forearm while cutting lumber with a power saw may regain use of the limb because of two savvy shoppers.
Nurse Judy Green and her husband, Charlie, were shopping at Hechinger's home center on Oct. 25 when 18-year-old Aleksandr Repnikov cut his left arm off two inches below the elbow.Repnikov ran screaming from the rear of the building to a main aisle and collapsed to his knees, bleeding profusely but still conscious.
"We heard screaming and ran back there," Green said.
She used a flannel shirt to make a tourniquet and her husband fashioned a second tourniquet from a belt, The Free Lance-Star reported Monday.
Green then found the severed arm next to the woodcutting machine and packed it in ice.
Dr. Morad Tavallali, a plastic surgeon, spent nine hours reattaching the arm.