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FILE - In this July 4, 2012 file photo, Army Sgt. Brendan Marrocco of Staten Island, N.Y., wearing a prosthetic arm, poses for a picture at the 9/11 Memorial in New York. Marrocco, 26, the first soldier to survive losing all four limbs in the Iraq war, has received a double-arm transplant in Baltimore. His father, Alex Marrocco, said Monday, Jan. 28, 2013 that his son had the operation on Dec. 18, 2012 at Johns Hopkins Hospital. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)
Associated Press

BALTIMORE (AP) - A soldier who lost all four limbs in an Iraq roadside bombing says he looks forward to driving and swimming with his new arms.

Twenty-six-year-old Brendan Marrocco spoke at a news conference Tuesday at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. He was joined by the surgeons who performed the double-arm transplant there.

Marrocco says he's happy and amazed to have new arms. He has prosthetic legs but says that without arms, he felt "kind of lost for a while."

The procedure was only the seventh double-hand or double-arm transplant ever conducted in the United States.

The infantryman was injured by a roadside bomb in 2009. The New York City man also received bone marrow from the same dead donor to minimize the medicine needed to prevent rejection.


(Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

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