Turkish teen shepherd loses both hands after saving bird on electrical wire

AĞRI - Doğan News Agency

The hands of a 17-year-old shepherd had to be amputated in surgery after he was electrically shocked when he tried to save a bird stranded on an electrical wire in the eastern province of Ağrı.

The surgery came about two weeks after the incident early on Oct. 9, when Ramazan Taşdemir climbed up an electricity pylon in the village of Günbuldu in the Diyadin district after seeing a bird stuck in the pylon.

The teen then climbed down the pylon after saving the bird, but a water bottle on his belt touched the transmission line, electrocuting him.

Taşdemir was immediately dispatched to the hospital as both his hands were severely burnt. The doctors were reported to have done everything possible to save the teenager’s hands, but following a four-hour-long surgery on Oct. 23, Taşdemir’s hands, with third-degree burns, were amputated below the elbow.

“It was his last days shepherding. He was going to go to Istanbul, but that did not happen. As he saved the bird’s wings stuck in the electric wire, he was himself left armless, wingless. I will take him under my protective care until death, but a hard life awaits him,” said Taşdemir’s mother, waiting outside the operating room.

Meanwhile, after the news of the teenager losing his hand came out, many benevolent people as well as various associations from abroad and inside Turkey contacted Taşdemir’s family to help him financially for prostheses.

“If prosthetic arms could be made that are equally as good as his amputated arms, the world would be mine,” the teenager’s father Mehmet Taşdemir told those who called him.

The hospital authorities indicated that at least one month needed to pass for prosthetic arms to be made for Ramazan Taşdemir.