A HYPNOTIST put himself in a trance to endure a complex hand operation – without anaesthetic.

Alex Lenkei, 61, heard the surgeon SAWING and HAMMERING a chisel into a walnut-sized growth, then moving a tendon on his arthritis-hit hand.

The hypnotist, who has practised 16 years, said: It took me 30 seconds to put myself under and I wasn't aware of my body apart from my arm.

"I could feel manipulating then bones cracking."

Alex, of Worthing, West Sussex, added: "I'd have said ...