Transplant Patient Carl Jones has Four Kidneys and Three Pancreases

A transplant patient can boast that he has four kidneys and three pancreases inside his abdominal cavity after surgeons deliberately left failed organs inside him to help his body cope.

Carl Jones, who suffered from Type 1 diabetes and spent hundreds of hours on dialysis, had a transplant after organ failure left him fighting for his life. He needed a second operation when the replacement organs stopped working four years later.

He also needed another new pancreas as the one he had did not produce enough insulin.

But rather than remove the failed organs, doctors left them inside his body as a sort of "support mechanism" for the replacements.

"I've got enough organs for a small family," the 32-year-old father-of -one said. "It's mad.

"The only bad thing is it makes it hard to lose weight because I've got all that in the front of my stomach."

The van driver, of Carmarthen, South Wales, had his first kidney and pancreas transplant in 2004. Four years later the operation had to be repeated.

He said he could now live a "fairly normal life" after his diabetes was brought under control.

Jones added: "The surgery is an ordeal for the body - leaving the failed organs inside makes it easier to take.

"I may have four kidneys and three pancreases but the organ donors have all the heart."