Top, Scott flexes his new fingertips as his doctor looks on   RELATED CHAT:   Dr. John Barker, hand transplant surgeon

• 'Uncharted territory'
• Chance of rejection
• Related stories and sites

LOUISVILLE, Kentucky (CNN) -- A beefy, athletic man, 37-year- old Matthew Scott portrays a healthy picture except for his heavily bandaged left arm and hand.

But the fingers peeking out from the bandage are not his own: They belong to a brain-dead patient whose heart was still beating when surgeons removed his left hand and transplanted it to Scott's arm.

The 15-hour operation that ended Monday morning at Jewish Hospital in Louisville was the first hand transplant performed in the United States.

A few days after the surgery, Scott was able to flex his new fingertips ever so slightly. One of his surgeons said he was almost out of danger of developing blood clots that could cut off blood flow, but it was too early to tell if he would gain significant use of the transplanted hand.

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Scott, a paramedic from Absecon, New Jersey, lost his own left hand in an accident with an M-80 explosive -- a powerful firecracker -- 13 years ago.

'Uncharted territory'

In a first, brief visit Thursday with two reporters and a photographer in his hospital room, Scott sat in a chair with his bandaged left hand and arm elevated.

At Scott's request, no questions were directed to him or his wife, Dawn.

At the prompting of Dr. Warren Breidenbach, his hand surgeon, Scott made the fingers twitch faintly. Breidenbach said he was testing the tendons that control finger movement. There is no feeling in the hand, he said.

The bracing of Scott's hand and his physical therapy will be important, Breidenbach said in an interview later.

"I can tell you Matt's going to give it every effort -- he's an excellent patient -- but the biologic process is going to ultimately control what happens, and we don't know. This is uncharted territory."

Chance of rejection

Scott's fingers are watched closely for signs of clotting, but blood circulation in the hand has been good so far, Breidenbach said.

"We're almost out of danger. ... Anything can happen. But the fact of the matter is, the majority of blood loss happens in the first three days," Breidenbach said.

Breidenbach said Scott was being treated in two ways -- as a transplant patient, with an anti-rejection regimen like that of a kidney transplant patient, and as a limb-reattachment patient.

Dr. Jon Jones, a member of the transplant team, told the Louisville Courier-Journal that there is a 30 percent to 50 percent chance that Scott's body will reject the new hand.

Scott will have to take medication indefinitely to help his body adapt to the new hand, and the drugs could adversely affect his immune system. If the side effects become life threatening, the hand will be removed, Jones said.

Scott is one of two people in the world with a transplanted hand. The other person is an Australian who underwent the graft in Lyon, France, in September.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.