On Thanksgiving eve, November 1995, four-year-old Israel B. was playing with his friends near his home in Salinas.  When he ran into the street after one of them, he was struck by a passing van, which ran over his arm, leaving it severely crushed and nearly amputated.
Emergency medical technicians who arrived at the scene believed the arm would in fact require amputation.  Israel was rushed to the local emergency department, and from there to California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco.  There, to save the boy's arm, Dr. Leonard Gordon undertook a very rare microsurgical procedure, one that had seldom been performed on a child so young.  It required revascularization of the nearly amputated arm, followed by transplantation of a muscle from Israel's leg to provide finger movement.  Veins from the leg were used to connect the very small arteries, and grafting of the nerves of the hand and fingers was done to enable their function.
After three separate microsurgical procedures and months of hand therapy, Israel made a nearly complete recovery.
Today, Israel fully uses both his arms.  He rides his bicycle, plays with his five brothers and sisters, and once again is the goalie for his school soccer team.  "After seeing what the van did," Israel's mother says, "it seems a miracle that he has the use of his arm again and can live the life of a normal, healthy child."