A Chinese factory worker's hand was chopped off in an accident at work, and held on to the man's ankle for dear life, literally, as it waited to be attached back to his arm.

Zhou was shocked when a machine with a rotating blade at the factory he works in cut off his left hand.

"I was just shocked and frozen at the spot, until co-workers unplugged the machine and retrieved my hand and took me to hospital," said the 25-year-old Zhou. He couldn't imagine life without a hand, being still young.

Doctors at the Xiangya Hospital in Changsha, Central China grafted Zhou's severed left hand to his right leg, before performing a re-implanting procedure to attach it back to his arm.

The doctors could not attach Zhou's hand back right away because the damage to his arm and hand had been grave, and putting it back right then and there would have caused more problems. Zhou had to wait about a month for the wounds to heal, before having his hand right where it should be.

While the tendons and nerves of his hand and arm waited to heal, the doctors said his hand needed some sort of life support to make sure it could go back functioning normally when it was re-attached.

According to Dr. Tang Juyu of Xiangya Hospital's hand microsurgery department head, under normal temperatures, a mere finger deeply severed needs to get back a supply of blood in not more than 10 hours. In Zhou's case when the whole limb was severed, the time needed until blood supply resumes was shorter.

The doctors wanted to ensure that Zhou's limb would still normally function after 30 days, as when it falls short of blood, the tissues would die and the hand couldn't be re-attached anymore.

To keep blood flowing through his hand, the doctors grafted his hand to his left ankle.

After a month, Dr. Tang's team performed a replantation procedure to attach his hand back. Zhou is now able to move his fingers, but still needs rehabilitation to get his hand functioning the same way it did as before.

A similarly successful hand replantation procedure, which can only be done when the ripped parts of the limb are not too damaged, was also performed by Dr. Tang's team last year.