--- title: Zion Harvey Double Hand Transplant Recipient Marks One Year description: Zion Harvey, the first child to receive a double hand transplant, marks one year since his surgery. Doctors say he's doing well canonical: https://time.com/4463544/zion-harvey-first-child-double-hand-transplant-marks-one-year/ author: Alexandra Sifferlin article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-08-23T21:33:07.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:55:13.592Z article:section: Health og:title: First Child to Receive a Double Hand Transplant Can Now Write, Make Lunch og:description: Zion Harvey marks one year since his surgery og:url: https://time.com/4463544/zion-harvey-first-child-double-hand-transplant-marks-one-year/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt46d290993ef45abf/6988a36f428a9e3fe7cd4002/zion-harvey.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3000 og:image:height: 1688 og:image:alt: 8-year-old Baltimore boy the world?s first pediatric double-hand transplant recipient og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: First Child to Receive a Double Hand Transplant Can Now Write, Make Lunch twitter:description: Zion Harvey marks one year since his surgery twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt46d290993ef45abf/6988a36f428a9e3fe7cd4002/zion-harvey.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # First Child to Receive a Double Hand Transplant Can Now Write, Make Lunch > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=9039d653-b825-4950-906c-0673a9882df1&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) ## Video: A Prosthetic Hand That Can Feel [Watch (HLS stream): A Prosthetic Hand That Can Feel](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/oRQrOoA9.m3u8) (5:02)  _Published 2015-11-11. Igor Spetic, 49, lost his right hand in a work related accident five years ago. But on Oct. 9, he got to bring home an innovative prosthetic hand for the first time, one that not only has more precise gripping, but gives him back his sense of touch._ by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Aug 23, 2016 9:33 PM UTC  Zion Harvey, 8, of Baltimore, seems to marvel at his new right hand while in his hospital bed on July 27, 2015\. Zion lost his hands and feet to a bacterial disease when he was 2, but had a double hand transplant at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia in early July 2015, the first pediatric double hand transplant. (Clem Murray/Philadelphia Inquirer/TNS via Getty Images) Zion Harvey, 8, of Baltimore, seems to marvel at his new right hand while in his hospital bed on July 27, 2015\. Zion lost his hands and feet to a bacterial disease when he was 2, but had a double hand transplant at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia in early July 2015, the first pediatric double hand transplant. (Clem Murray/Philadelphia Inquirer/TNS via Getty Images) Philadelphia Inquirer—TNS via Getty Images by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Aug 23, 2016 9:33 PM UTC Zion Harvey made history in July 2015 when he became the first child to receive a double hand transplant after losing his hands and feet years earlier to an infection. It’s been one year since the surgery, and Harvey’s doctors say he’s doing well and can throw a baseball, write in his journal and make himself lunch. Harvey was 8 years old when he underwent the transplant at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) in 2015.“He wanted to do what other children can do without so much trouble,” his mother Pattie Ray [told TIME after the procedure](http://time.com/3973309/hand-transplant-video/?iid=sr-link1). Harvey had previously received a kidney transplant and therefore was already taking the anti-rejection medication that was required for a hand transplant as well. In the past physicians have been hesitant to put children on the drugs since they can have serious side effects. Since the surgery, Harvey has undergone lots of rehabilitation and his doctors say function of his hands is improving. Harvey recently [threw the first pitch](http://www.phillymag.com/news/2016/08/07/zion-harvey-first-pitch/) at a Baltimore Orioles game. “The only thing that’s different is instead of no hands, I have two hands,” said Harvey in a [video released by CHOP](http://www.chop.edu/news/first-child-undergo-bilateral-hand-transplant-marks-one-year-surgery-children-s-hospital#.V7yv%5FJMrJHY). “I’m still the same kid everybody knew without hands.” In the U.S. there have been 11 double hand transplants so far. [As TIME has previously reported](http://time.com/4419959/double-hand-transplant-surgery/), some surgeries have been more successful than others. Jeff Kepner, the first person to receive a double hand transplant in the United States, in 2009, [says his hands have never worked](http://time.com/4419959/double-hand-transplant-surgery/), and in hindsight he wouldn’t do the operation. ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] It's, you really can't explain it. It's literally losing a body part. It's not just one finger. It's five fingers. It's losing your palm. Losing the back of your hand. Losing that ability to grasp things. Nearly 5 years ago I suffered a workplace accident which resulted in the loss of my right hand. People have tried to create a hand that looks just like the human hand. I don't think that's the ideal prosthetic. I actually think what want to do is have them forget they lost a hand. [ MUSIC ] [ BLANK_AUDIO ] A friend of mine contacted me and said that they were doing a sensory restoration project at the Cleveland VA Medical Center, and would I be interested in possibly participating? So the basic goal of this technology is to restore sensation to people that have lost their hand. You've also lost all the sensors that used to touch the world. Even though the sensor is gone the wires that communicate that information back to the brain still exist. And so what we've done is develop devices that can go onto those wires and apply electrical information that basically communicate to the wires that then send that back to the brain. Brain, and so they feel as though it's their hand in what we do. When the prosthesis touches something, the person feels as though they're touching that. If you want to sit though it, we can see- The first time that I felt sensation, the actual sense of my hand being there, was when I shook the hand of Professor Dustin Tyler. What that means to me is getting something back that I lost. And I never knew that would even be possible. To even get one sensation back. But to literally get 20 different sensations back. It's me being almost whole again. When we ask our subjects how do you feel when you're using the prosthesis. If they don't have sensation enabled they describe it as a tool. They'll say basically I'm holding a tool at the end of my arm and I'm manipulating it. As soon as we turn on sensation they say no it's my hand. I'm touching something. That's a huge change. One of the big things that distinguishes our work is that we are, to my knowledge, the first group that's been able to do this for longer than a couple weeks in the lab. And now sending them home we're the first to allow them to go home and to use this on a regular basis and see what the impact will be in their home life. [ CROSSTALK ] the real world is. That's gonna be Going to get a little emotional when I go home. Think so? Yeah. Oh, yeah. I already know it. Oh really? When you're in the lab you focus on sensation and so it's very easy. Well, relatively easy to make these things work but the real challenge is when people go home. We want to see the impact in day to day life. So, we haven't ever had the opportunity to do this before, to send him home and clean the dishes, make the salad, and make sandwiches, hold his wife's hand. And I've only had this system for two days now, so it's still been a learning curve for myself. And learning to be right handed again. But I've been using it more and more. The hardest one so far that I've found is hard boiled eggs. Cuz even though they say they're hard boiled, when the shell is off, they're really soft. And I used to crush them all the time. But now I'm able to hold it and feel them in my fingers. The brain is an amazing device. It's really a great organizer categorizer, right? And that's been great for us, because this idea of natural sensation, I think, relies on that. The view of the brain as it learns our communication So we're trying to get as close as we can to what the natural language of the body is, but that's really hard. There's 10, 000 axons, 10, 000 different signals, we're not there yet. But what's beautiful is we can get close and the brain can do the rest of the work for us. So even though it's not perfect, the person still interprets that information to be a sense of touch. And what's even better is over time the brain will learn our language better and better. [ INAUDIBLE ] I know it's still an ongoing process, so my hopes are that, that someday it can be more functional than anything that's ever been out there. 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