Bike crash victim gets a bionic bottom in Royal London operation

21 November 2009

Crash victim Ged Galvin after the pioneering operation at the Royal London

A MOTORCYCLE crash victim who was fitted with a bionic bottom allowing him to go to the toilet using a remote control, has spoken out about his ground-breaking operation at the Royal London Hospital.

Father-of-two Ged Galvin was left with massive injuries and had his bottom "ripped in two" by the fuel tank of his Kawasaki 750 motorcycle when a car shot out in front of him.

The 55-year-old was given just hours to live by doctors but when he pulled through, he was fitted with a colostomy bag after several operations failed to repair the sphincters in his bottom.

But after being referred to bowel specialist Professor Norman Williams at the Royal London, the IT project manager was offered a new lease of life - at the press of a button.

He said: "When I want to go to the loo, I use the remote control - it's like a chubby little mobile phone.

"You switch it on and off, just like switching on the telly."

Surgeons cut the muscle above Ged's knee, pulled it back to his groin and wrapped it around the damaged sphincter in his bottom.

They then attached electrodes to the nerve to the muscle and fitted a pacemaker which would act as a stimulator.

Six weeks later the electronic device was switched on by remote control.

Ged who lives in Barnsley, South Yorkshire added: "My gratitude to Professor Williams and his colleagues is endless. What they have done is a miracle.

"They call me the man with the bionic bottom, but that doesn't bother me. It's better than being the man with a colostomy bag."

Ged underwent the operation in 2007 but recently came forward to raise the profile of Professor Williams' Bowel and Cancer Research charity which is based at the Royal London.

Professor Williams, who has been working at the hospital for 12 years and has carried out a similar operation on around 180 patients, said: "Ged had been pretty smashed up but I felt there was something I could do.

"It is always more complicated for people who have been in road accidents and it does make it a challenging procedure to perform.

"Sometimes there can be complications during the operation. We have a 50 per cent success rate. Ged is a lucky man."

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