The carpenter, 46, from Walton-on-Thames, in Surrey, said he felt an out-of-body experience when the hand was almost completely severed at the base of his palm and again just below his fingers.

Doctors at St George’s Hospital in Tooting, south London, were able to help the carpenter regain the use of his hand after attaching it to his groin for two weeks to help the skin grow back.

Consultant plastic surgeon Roger Adlard, who was on call when Mr Lelliott was brought to the hospital, said the injury was “probably the most complex amputation” he has ever operated on.