Chief surgeon doctor Denis Corcella (C) ? flanked by assistant surgeons Billy Chedal Bornu (L) and Mickael Bouyer (R) ? holds a press conference at the Grenoble hospital on August 25, 2017, following France's first reimplantation of a woman's two arms. AFP/Philippe Desmazes

PARIS: Surgeons have reattached a woman?s arms after they were severed by a train, a rare operation and a first in France in that both limbs were worked on at the same time.

The four-hour procedure was conducted by a double team at the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Grenoble Alpes hospital in southeast France.

The surgery began early in the evening of August 14, one hour and 50 minutes after the 30-year-old?s arms were severed in the accident at Chambery station, 60 kilometres (35 miles) away.

?The speed with which the emergency services acted and the skills of the medical team allowed both arms to be re-attached and gives the patient the best possible chance of recovery because too much delay can cause irreversible damage,? the hospital said in a statement on its website.