Circulation Is Restored to Boy’s Arm

An 8-year-old boy remained in critical condition Friday after more than six hours of surgery to reattach an arm that was torn off in a freak accident at his home in Arleta, a spokeswoman for the UCLA Medical Center said.

“Doctors were successful in reattaching the limb . . . restoring circulation to the arm and hand,” Simi Singer said.

“Doctors will be watching very closely over the next several days,” she said, but it will be some time before they know whether the limb will grow back or how well it will function.

The boy, whose name is being withheld at the request of his parents, lost the arm Thursday afternoon when the loose end of a rope he had coiled around the limb became tangled in a wheel of his mother’s car.

The accident occurred about 4:30 p.m. in the 9200 block of Cedros Avenue, according to Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman Bob Collis.

“The boy was coiling a half-inch plastic rope around his arm,” he said. “The loose end somehow got tangled in the car. Mom drove off, tightening the rope around his arm. His arm was torn off three inches below the shoulder.”

The boy was taken by ambulance to Van Nuys Airport, then put aboard a helicopter and flown to UCLA Medical Center in Westwood, Collis said.