Firefighter Receives Face Transplant

Surgeons in NY have revealed that they have successfully completed the most extensive face transplant in history – rebuilding the features of a volunteer fireman from MS who was grievously disfigured in a 2001 blaze, using tissue from a donor killed in a cycling accident.

A 41-year-old volunteer firefighter from MS now wears the face of a 26-year-old bike messenger from Brooklyn, after what doctors are calling the most extensive face transplant surgery ever performed.

Another firefighter suggested that Hardison consider face transplant surgery in 2012, which is how Hardison connected with Eduardo Rodriguez, MD, DDS, of the NYU Langone Medical Center Hansjörg Wyss Department of Plastic Surgery, who was at the University of Maryland at the time.

The latest surgery provided for the transplantation of a donor’s eyelids and “blinking mechanisms”, which have helped Hardison immensely since he was in danger of losing his eyesight.

Hardison, who was told he had a 50-50 chance of surviving the surgery, still has constant pain and could still face potential complications from the surgery.

Before the Langone surgery he had undergone 71 operations and developed a painkiller addiction. “I hope they see in me the goodness of their decision”.

The NYU medical team had practiced for a full year to get it right.

Of his appearance before the transplant, Hardison told Fishman: “Kids ran screaming and crying when they saw me”.

In the U.S. in 2011, surgeons at Brigham and Women’s hospital in Boston gave a new nose, lips, skin, muscle and nerves to Dallas Wiens, a 25-year-old construction worker from Texas who was disfigured in an accident involving power lines.

Rodriguez said that three months after the surgery, Hardison is doing well and is on the path to a full recovery. He kissed them with his new face, and they hugged and cried. This is a major milestone – one that could lead to preserving vision in future patients.

“There are myriad ethical issues too, and we mustn’t loose sight of the complexities by just celebrating a successful transplant operation”.

Forty-eight hours after Rodebaugh’s death, doctors stripped his face from his skull and prepared to transfer it onto Hardison, whose face had also been surgically removed. It’s the first time that doctors have transplanted a patient’s eyelids. An NYU Langone Medical Center grant will cover these costs.

Rodebaugh’s face was the third offered to Hardison, who met the pioneering Dr Rodriguez in 2012. “We hope his story will unfold exactly as he expected it to be”. But on July 22, he crashed his bike and died of his injuries.

David Rodebaugh was 26. “We could not have helped Patrick without unbelievable teamwork”.

Mississippi Emergency Management Agency executive director Robert Latham said he has known Hardison for most of his life, as he grew up in Senatobia alongside Latham’s two sons.