12-year-old Pennsylvania boy back home after arm reattachment surgery


A western Pennsylvania boy has returned home less than three weeks since doctors reattached his arm after it was severed by a tractor mechanism.

Seth Apel tells KDKA-TV that “it feels good to be home.”

Seth was helping unload firewood using a tractor’s belt-driven mechanism when his arm got severed just below the shoulder on Nov. 7 outside their home in Knox, about 60 miles northeast of Pittsburgh.

Paramedics packed the arm in ice and doctors at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC spent eight hours reattaching it. Seth was home Friday.

His mother, Angela Apel, says doctors aren’t sure whether the boy will regain full use of his arm, but says “God will give him whatever he needs and, whatever it is, we will be grateful.”