A man successfully had his severed hand restored to his arm after it was preserved by being grafted to his leg, said the surgeon on Friday.

The man, surnamed Zhou, from central China's Hunan Province, now has slight movement of his fingers but he still needs further rehabilitation, said Tang Juyu, head of the hand microsurgery department of Xiangya Hospital in Changsha, capital of Hunan.

This is the second such surgery performed by the team, with the first in late 2013.

Zhou lost his left hand in a work accident in the city of Xiangtan.

"My mind went blank at that moment and I just thought that I had lost one hand," he recalled.

After being sent to a local hospital, he was devastated to learn he would need an amputation. But he was then transferred to Xiangya Hospital in the provincial capital, which is much more advanced in this area.

Surgeons at Xiangya Hospital could not reattach the hand straight away. His arm was badly hurt and the nerves and tendons needed time to heal.

"In normal temperatures, a severed finger should resume blood supply within 10 hours. The time is even shorter for a separated limb," said Tang.

"If it falls short of blood for long, the tissues dies and it would be impossible to get it back," he said.

The surgeons chose to graft the severed hand to his ankle to ensure blood supply and kept it alive there for more than a month. After Zhou recovered from his work accident, they restored the hand to its original limb in a 10-hour surgery.