Turkish limb transplant patient under critical condition

ANTALYA - Doğan News Agency

Atilla Kavdır held hands with his wife, Ayşe Kavdır, for the first time on April 3. ‘Hopefully, I will see the day when my husband wears a wedding ring,’ said Ayşe Kavdır. DHA photo

Turkey’s first triple-limb transplant patient Atilla Kavdır was taken under intensive-care unit yesterday due to heart and kidney failure at 4 p.m., some 100 days after he underwent the landmark surgery at Akdeniz University in the Mediterranean province of Antalya.

A team of doctors at Akdeniz University Hospital in the southern province of Antalya performed Kavdır’s operation on Jan. 21. Atilla Kavdır was Turkey’s first triple-limb transplant patient, yet his body rejected the leg a day after the surgery.

Kavdır lost his arms and right leg when he was 11 years old after he electrocuted himself by hitting a power line outside his home with an iron rod he was using to scare away pigeons. 

“I have been living without arms for 23 years; I want to hold my wife’s and children’s hands and drive a motorbike or a car perhaps,” Kavdır had said at an earlier press meeting. 

Atilla Kavdır held hands with his wife, Ayşe Kavdır, for the first time on April 3.

“We had always dreamed of this day. Hopefully, I will also see the day when my husband wears a wedding ring on his finger and puts on a watch on his wrist,” said Ayşe Kavdır, who has been married to Atilla Kavdır for 17 years.