Peter Walsh
This plaque is located at 45 Parrott Street. (Back of Recreation Reserve scoreboard)
Peter ‘Plumber’ Walsh has helped to re-write medical journals. The father of five and grandfather of 17 has defied the odds by becoming Australia’s first-ever (and the world’s oldest) hand transplant recipient. Despite Peter not meeting all the preferred criteria, a team from St Vincent’s Hospital in Melbourne was encouraged to carry out the intricate and challenging surgery.
The cause of it all – pneumococcus bacteria – can be fairly harmless but Peter’s case was complicated by losing his spleen in a work accident 26 years earlier.
‘Plumber’ acknowledges his good fortune in having support all around him – the care and patience of his wife Margaret and his family and, of course, the skills of the St Vincent’s team, headed by Prof Wayne Morrison, Dr Angela Webb and Prof Karen Dwyer.
2006: The bacterial infection strikes. The relatively healthy 60 year-old plumber unusually vomits while helping son-in-law ‘Hook’ Smith milk his cows. That night, his hands and feet freeze in bed and he’s rushed to Camperdown’s hospital.
Off to Warrnambool, then to Melbourne. His blackened extremities are dying. What the hell is going on? A couple of weeks later, amputation of both hands, his right foot and his left foot below the knee is the only solution . . . the only way to save his life.
For five years, he lives without limbs. He can’t do up his buttons, write, shave, clean his teeth or go to the toilet on his own but he does learn to walk on artificial legs.
His family provides amazing support. Using a ‘bowling arm’, he even wins a lawn bowls premiership.
A determined ‘Plumber’ lets his doctors know he’s happy to be involved in a transplant program. Some time later, in March 2011, the call comes: “I need you in Melbourne today.”
A donor hand is available, and a nine hour operation at St Vincent’s Hospital proceeds. Twelve hours later, he wakes with a new right hand. “I can’t believe it. All my dreams have come true.”
Hand therapy sessions begin. A rigid hand brace is replaced by a more flexible splint. Regular checks are carried out for rejection of the new hand. So far, so good. Cricket great Shane Warne drops in.
With wife Marg, he stays in Melbourne for four months for daily hand therapy. Home for Easter, but back again for more rehabilitation.
The subject of worldwide discussion and media focus, his story appears on front pages and on television. Charles Woolley of 60 Minutes becomes a family friend.
Anti-rejection tablets for the rest of his life. “Small price,” he says, “I could have been pushing up daisies.”
He tosses the coin at the MCG for a Geelong-West Coast preliminary final. He is able to drive his car, write a note, hold a stubby, roll the turf wicket . . .
Eventually, he is able to write a heart-felt letter to the anonymous donor family. “I feel that it is a miracle that I was given the gift of a hand from your son and brother. . . words cannot begin to express the gratitude I feel. He gave me the best gift that life can bring . . .”
A small rejection hiccup in 2015 but his doctors deal with it swiftly.
August 2016: A long road ahead but he is closer to achieving his aim – in his own words, “to pick my nose and scratch my backside.”
