Totally Texas -- Every hand has a story to tell

Adrian E. Flatt, M.D. Hand Collection

Truett Hospital, Baylor University Medical Center

3500 Gaston, Dallas

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I dropped by surgeon Adrian Flatt’s collection of famous hands recently to see what was new. It’s been several years since I located the little museum inside the front door of Truett Hospital, part of the Baylor University Medical Center in East Dallas. Then I happened to catch sight of the bronze casts while visiting a friend. Then my daughter wanted to see the collection a couple of years ago to show her pre-school aged sons the bronze casts of the hands of Andre Roussimoff, aka Andre the Giant, their movie idol from The Princess Bride, as the giant Fezzik.

Every time I stop by, there are more casts of famous people’s hands, courtesy of hand surgeon Dr. Flatt. Besides Roussimoff’s hands are those of other childhood heroes such as Walt Disney and Theodore Seuss Geisel (aka Dr. Seuss), whose works the boys can recite by heart. And a bunch of athletes, entertainers, scientists and politicians for grownups to gossip about. (Is there a family resemblance between the hands of father and son presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush? How about between actress Mary Martin and her son, the late Larry Hagman?)

This week, the boys were in school and I went to the museum by myself. With more time to browse, what caught my attention were the hands -- in one case, what little was left of them -- of three adventurers.

First, a warning. The bronzed stumps cast from Dallas physician S. Beck Weathers’ hands after his near-death experience on Mount Everest are disturbing even to an adult. But there they were, in a case with hand casts of fellow Texan Richard Bass, first man to climb the tallest mountains on each of the seven continents; and Robert Ballard, discoverer of the wreck of the Titanic, among others. People who’ve been the highest and some of the deepest places on Earth. And lived to tell about it.

Dr. Weathers was a member of a particularly ill-fated 1996 venture to Mount Everest, left for dead during a snowstorm that claimed the life of two guides and two other climbers in his expedition -- only a few of the fifteen people who died trying to reach the top of the world that year.

Another of the exhibits in the little museum discusses the method Dr. Flatt uses to obtain his bronze casts. And still another is a delightful display of cultural artifacts about hands -- some presented to Dr. Flatt by grateful patients. There is a video that looks interesting, but was not working on my visit Wednesday. When I inquired, I was promised a call from someone in the hospital’s marketing department. No matter, the hands speak for themselves.

The museum is free and open twenty-four hours a day, like the hospital, although late night visits will have to ask to have the door unlocked. There’s parking on several sides of the hospital, and DART’s Green Line train stops behind the medical center. For more about Dr. Flatt and his famous hands, see
http://americanprofiles.com/articles/molding_celebrities_hands/

Totally Texas -- A show of hands

Adrian E. Flatt, M.D. Hand Collection

Truett Hospital, Baylor University Medical Center, Dallas

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The twins had just watched The Princess Bride.  Little boys that they are, their favorite character was Fezzik the giant, played by Andre Roussimoff, also known as Andre the Giant.  Just the excuse their mom needed to take them to the Adrian E. Flatt, M.D., Hand Collection.  Dr. Flatt, a hand surgeon, began casting and bronze-coating hands of famous people as a hobby in 1962.  The casts housed at Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas include, of course, those of Roussimoff.

The casts from the seven foot, four-inch tall, five hundred pound Roussimoff dwarf those of fellow wrestler Fritz Von Erich, displayed side by side.  They are so large that the shyer twin refused to be lifted to the upper shelf of the exhibit for a closer look.  A giant on the TV screen he could accept.  A giant in real life – that’s something else.  All the casts are displayed with photographs of the people who volunteered their hands for the program.  In his photograph, Roussimoff appears disarmingly shy, appropriate for a man who suffered since childhood from the hormone disorder acromegaly – gigantism -- that probably contributed to his death from congestive heart failure at age 46.

The first hands Dr. Flatt cast were those of fellow hand surgeons to prove there are no “typical surgeons’ hands.”  He went on to casts of athletes ranging from the small but muscular hands of jockey Willie Shoemaker and gymnast Cathy Rigby’s elfin fingers through the typically large hands of Troy Aikman, Wilt Chamberlain, and Mike Modano.  None of them, however, of a size to rival Roussimoff’s.  The exhibit also includes casts of entertainers, artists, astronauts, scientists, U.S. Presidents, and others.

Like Roussimoff’s, all of the casts are expressive and revealing.  Dr. Flatt’s technique, described in the exhibit, captures fine details of each hand, even fingerprints, arthritic joints and broken fingernails.  The twins’ also appreciated the casts of Walt Disney and Theodor Geisel, creator of Dr. Seuss, that showed them the human side of artists whose work they love.

The exhibit is in the Truett Hospital of the medical center at

3500 Gaston Avenue in Dallas.  It’s free and open 24 hours, just like the hospital.