Man's hand pulled off in tug-of-war

A tug-of-war in Shenzhen, China turned nasty when one of the contestants had his hand severed in a freak accident.

The man, surnamed Shi, a deputy general manager at a night club was celebrating the Dragon Boat Festival with colleagues on a beach at 4.30am.

Shi, 1.8 meters tall and 34-years-old, was the anchorman in his five-man team and had coiled the rope around his hand several times for stability, letting the rest of the rope fall to the ground.

It was a fierce competition with everyone pulling as hard as they could when excited spectators suddenly joined in, grabbing the end of the rope near Shi.

Suddenly Shi screamed and fainted and his severed hand fell to the ground.

Shi was rushed to a local hospital and then transferred to the Guangzhou Peace Hand Surgery Hospital for a seven-hour operation. Shi's family now has to wait 10 days to see whether he will be able to use his hand at all or even if the reattachment will work. Even if the surgery succeeds, all the functions of the hand will not be restored, Liang Min, the director of the hospital, said.