An Indiana man has become the eighth person to receive a hand transplant at Louisville’s Jewish Hospital.Fifty-six year old Ronald Thurman of Marion received a new right hand in a 15-and-a-half hour procedure that ended early this morning. The donor hand came from a 22 year old Texas man who lost his life in a car accident. Surgical team member Dr. Joseph Kutz says Thurman is doing well and will soon be outfitted with a brace to aid his physical therapy.Kutz says each of these procedures presents a unique challenge. "In this case, he has muscles, but he doesn’t have all of them, and we have to do as we have to do in many cases, utilize muscles that the Good Lord put in there for one job, He also gave us the knowledge to move it over to do a second job," he said. Thurman lost his right hand in a farming accident in 2003.
Rick Howlett was midday host and the host of LPM's weekly talk show, "In Conversation." He was with LPM from 2001-2023 and held many different titles, including Morning Edition host, Assignment Editor and Interim News Director. He died in August 2023. Read a remembrance of Rick here.