Micro-surgery restores Matthew's ear

Matthew McNeill, 27, was taken to the Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead for an operation after he lost part of his ear in an accident.

He had got his head trapped between a wooden beam and a low ceiling while parking a digger last month.

Mr McNeill, of Hooe, said: "I was parking the digger in a barn and was checking it when it lurched forward.

"My head got pushed to the side and it was caught on the edge of the digger.

"I was most concerned that I had hurt my head, which had been put under a lot of pressure.

"So I sat on the ground for a while and felt it. In doing that I noticed there was some blood and my ear felt more ragged and out of shape than it should do.

"I went indoors and thankfully my partner, Victoria Keith, had returned to the house.

"She fetched me some ice.

"We found the piece of my ear that had been severed and went to Eastbourne A&E."

Doctors there took some photos of the severed ear and emailed them over to specialist plastic surgeons at the Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead.

The businessman, who owns his own company called Sport in Motion, was then rushed to the hospital at 1am on May 6.

Despite the highly complex operation lasting nine hours, a team of surgeons, anaesthetists, nurses and support staff from the Queen Victoria successfully re-attached the severed section of ear.

Surgeons used a powerful microscope to insert four very fine stitches thinner than human hair to re-attach the ear. Plastic surgeon, TC Teo, said microscopic blood vessels had to be re-connected during the nine-hour surgery.

The procedure is very delicate and there is a high risk of failure, he said.

The operation has been attempted many times around the world but has failed on at least a dozen occasions.

Mr McNeill said: "I have been exceptionally lucky. You can barely tell that the ear was severed. It's only on close inspection that you can see it was severed.

"My surgeon, Mr Teo, was very good and was a dedicated man. I was in recovery for 24 hours and on the ward for seven days afterwards.

"Everyone involved in treating me was absolutely brilliant."