One Year After Double Hand Transplant Surgery, Zion, 9, is ‘Pioneer’

Zion’s mom knows her son’s “hands are going to be used in great ways.”

And the 9-year-old boy, the first child to undergo a double hand transplant surgery, already is proving her right, according to a team of doctors pulled from Penn Medicine, Shriners Hospital for Children and the Children’s Hospital of Pennsylvania that completed the historic operation at CHOP last year and continue to monitor Zion’s health today.

“Zion is a pioneer,” said Dr. Abraham Shaked, a surgery professor at Penn Medicine’s Perelman School and the director of the Penn Transplant Institute, in a statement. “ With each week since his surgery, our team has learned more that will inform their efforts to perform future bilateral hand transplants and afford more children and adults a better quality of life.”

Just 13 months ago, Zion’s life looked much different. A serious infection led to the eventual amputation of the Baltimore boy’s hands and feet at the age of 2, and the need for a kidney transplant. The organ donor was his mother.

Pattie Ray watched as her young son learned how to walk with his prosthetic legs and how to use his elbows to play video games – like many other children, but also not like other kids at all.

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