(WHAS11) -- Students at Spalding University had the chance to hear from a hand transplant recipient on National Organ Donation Day.
Donnie Rickelman from Linton, Indiana injured both hands in a factory accident in 1998, when they got caught in a steel splitter machine.
His right hand was crushed and his left hand partially amputated below the wrist. Rickelman underwent a hand transplant at Jewish hospital in Louisville in 2011 and says it changed his life.
Jewish Hospital has performed a total of nine hand transplants on eight patients.
