Nations First Full Face Transplant Successfully Performed – New Pictures

21 March 2011

Horribly scarred by an electrical burn accident, 25 year old Dallas Wiens underwent a miraculous full face transplant at a Boston Hospital. After 15 hours of surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, the Texas man received the nation’s full face transplant. The surgery happened last week, but the team of 30 doctors led by plastic surgeon Dr. Bohdan Pomahac are only beginning to talk about it today.


Wiens, suffered an electrical accident in November 2008, when the left side of his head came in contact with an electrical wire, that left him blind and without lips, a nose or eyebrows. In Boston, doctors transplanted an entire new face, including a nose, lips, skin and muscles and nerves that animate the skin and give sensation. The donor’s identity was not disclosed.

Dallas Wiens and family

In an Associated Press story and a YouTube video last fall, Wiens spoke poignantly about why he wanted a transplant and how he wanted to smile again and feel kisses from his 3-year-old daughter. Face transplants give horribly disfigured people hope of a new option “rather than looking in the mirror and hating what they see,” he said.

This was the second face transplant the Boston hospital has performed; the previous one was in April 2009 - the partial replacement of the face of a man who suffered traumatic facial injuries from a freak accident.


UPDATE: The final results.

Source : helablog.com