Man Carries the Amputated Arm of His Twin Transplanted to His Chest

To 'sculpture' your own body usually means going to gym and model your muscles. But for others the meaning may go beyond your imagination.

Ryan and Dave from Phoenix, Arizona, are surely the most unique twins in the world. They do not only share the same DNA, but their bodies also. Literally. After getting tired of piercing, tattoos and implants about three years ago, they went experimenting much 'heavier' surgical modifications.

Ryan carries Dave's entire right arm (both brothers are left handed) amputated at the shoulder and surgically reattached behind his right pectoral muscle.

Dave studied two and a half years in pre-med at Queens University in Kingston and with the help of two practitioners and two assistants he met there and online the brothers accomplished the procedure. It was obvious that no clinic would have done this.

The surgery was made under local anesthesia, as the brothers did not have the facilities for safe administration of general anesthesia. Using an Ace bandage, the blood was slowly squeezed out of Dave's arm. The arm was tourniquetted as high up on the shoulder as it could be and lidocaine was injected into the exsanguinated veins.

An amputation knife cut the skin and muscles and a bone saw finished the job. Bleeders were ligated and the wound was cleaned up. The arm removal procedure took place in about 40 minutes.

Meanwhile, the other practitioner and his assistant prepared Ryan. Veins and arteries were modeled for the future arm to have a blood supply. Some of the subcutaneous tissue was peeled up to merge as smoothly as possible.

The healing went very well, in a month the transplant and Dave's stump were OK. As the brothers are monozygotic twins (they have the same DNA), there were no rejection problems.

This does not stop here. Ryan carries also an "alien" finger. A center joint of one of Dave's fingers was removed, along with the skin and about one inch (2.5 cm) of overhanging tendon. Ryan's finger was split to the end of the first joint and the extra joint was inserted. Ryan even has feeling in the tip of that finger, as the nerves resulted to be compatible.

When Dave's finger tip was put back on, the lack of tendon made it lose mobility and the finger tends to bang, that's why Dave carries it bandaged. In fact, he's planning to remove the finger altogether, to the wrist.

"That will let us shift the little finger over without much apparent scarring giving us a very realistic three fingered hand." said Dave.

Surprisingly, the brothers have very regular jobs.

"We make a great living in the traditional world. I'm not going to say the name of our company, but to suffice it to say that we're the sixth largest producer of adult entertainment software in North America. The Ferrari Dino 246 that Ryan is leaning on right now is a $50,000 car. That may not seem like a lot of money, but we paid it off in one day. Not all "freaks" are punk kids." Dave told BME.

And for the future?

"We've got some genital work planned that's pretty exciting," said Dave.

Now we just can't wait to see where exactly the penis (or part of it) or the testicles of one brother will hang on the body of the other.