XIAN CITY, CHINA — A Chinese hospital in the process of creating a human ear almost entirely through the human anatomy alone.

According to Chinese state media news outlet CCTV, plastic surgeons have grown an ear on a patient’s arm after he lost it in an car accident one year ago. The man, identified only as Ji, is being treated by surgeons at First Hospital Affiliated with Xian Jiaotong University in Xian City, Shaanxi Province.

Several months ago, a dilator was inserted into the man’s right forearm, which received daily water injections that created a thin and stretched layer of skin. Next, the hospital removed some of the patient’s rib cage cartilage and modeled them into the shape of an ear.

This cartilage model was then inserted into the expanded skin, which has formed around it in the shape of a human ear.

“It looks exactly the same as my old ear,” Ji said, according to a China Daily/Asia News Network report on the Strait Times.

The next part of Ji’s treatment — transplanting the new ear to the patient’s head — will take around three or four months.