The operation to attach four limbs to a young male reportedly named Şevket Çavdar took over 20 hours.

Sky says the patient’s legs and arms were amputated when he was 13.

Says surgeon Serdar Nasir:

“We have good results but maybe we will lose all of the limbs. Maybe (we’ll) lose only one or two, we have to wait, but I think for now we have good results.”

Hurriyet reports:

Doctors completed Turkey’s first quadruple-limb and second face transplant surgeries at Ankara’s Hacettepe University on Feb. 24, just weeks after surgeons at Akdeniz University in the Mediterranean province of Antalya performed the country’s first face and triple-limb transplant operations.

A team of medical experts arrived at Dokuz Eylül University in the Aegean province of İzmir on Feb. 24 to retrieve the arms, legs and face of donor N.K., and quickly returned to Ankara. 

Would you carry a donor card if after your death your face was removed and placed on another person’s head?

“My son has never done anything to upset me until now. I have always been proud of my son. He lost his life at a young age, and he leaves his children behind,” said N.K.’s mother, according to Anatolia news agency.  N.K., 40, had been severely injured in a traffic accident 10 days earlier in İzmir’s Çeşme district, and his family agreed to donate his organs after doctors pronounced him brain dead. 

The article / press release continues:Grave mistake mars Turkey’s second face transplantMedical experts then surgically removed all his limbs and face at around 11:00 a.m. on Feb. 24, according to Doğan news agency.

Doctors transplanted N.K.’s face to 25-year-old Cengiz Gür, 70 percent of whose face had been damaged at the age of 5 when a television exploded. N.K.’s arms and legs went to 27-year-old Şevket Çavdar, who reportedly lost all of his limbs after receiving an electric shock in 1998…

Meanwhile, hospital staff members carrying the donor’s limbs in İzmir dropped a bag containing N.K.’s legs when the bottom side of the carton the bag was in burst open. The attendants returned the bag to the box and carried it to the hospital. 

A team of doctors led by surgeon Ömer Özkan successfully performed Turkey’s first face transplant operation on Uğur Acar, 19, who received the face of donor Ahmet Kaya, 39, on Jan. 21 at Antalya’s Akdeniz University Hospital. The patient saw his new face in the mirror for the first time Feb. 13. 

Another patient, Atilla Kavdır, also received two donor arms and a leg in a surgical operation on the same day as Acar, although his body rejected the leg a day later. Kavdır experienced multiple organ failure and life-threatening blood clots in the first 72 hours after the surgery, but was reported to be in “good and stable” condition when he was discharged from intensive care Feb. 16.

So much news from Turkey. Is the country trying to be at the forefront of such operations?

Image: During transportation, the limbs fall out of the cardboard box they are being delivered in.