Boy’s Arm Pulled Off in Accident
An 8-year-old boy’s right arm was pulled off Thursday when a rope he had coiled around it became caught in the wheel of his mother’s car as she drove away, authorities said.
The boy was in surgery late Thursday at UCLA Medical Center in Westwood, with the hospital’s microsurgery reattachment team and plastic surgeons working to reattach the arm, said Felix Boceta, the hospital’s nursing supervisor. The boy was listed in serious but stable condition, Boceta said.
The accident occurred about 4:30 p.m. at the boy’s home in the 9100 block of Cedros Avenue. The youngster had coiled a half-inch-thick plastic rope about around his right arm, L.A. Fire Department spokesman Bob Collis said.
Collis said somehow the end of the rope became tangled around the wheel of the car. The mother drove off and “the rope just tightened and took his arm off three inches below the shoulder,” Collis said.
Paramedics surrounded the amputated arm with cold packs, Collis said. They took the boy to Van Nuys Airport, and an air ambulance flew him to UCLA.
“The prognosis, I think, is probably better than 50-50, as far as reattachment goes,” Collis said.
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