After suffering severe burns, firefighter receives new face and scalp in

A former firefighter from Tennessee received the face of a brain-dead man from Brooklyn through the “most extensive” facial transplant ever performed.

More than 150 NYU staff were involved in the transplant, and the medical team which carried out the surgery practiced for a full year to get it right, he added.

Pat Hardison, 41, who was severely burned in 2001, underwent 26 hours of surgery in August after being paired with an organ donor, ABC News reports. “When I met Patrick and heard his story, I knew that I had to do all I could to help him – and every member of my team felt the same way”.

Doctors were pleased with Hardison’s progress nearly immediately as hair on his scalp and face started growing back, and he could blink on the third day of recovery as his swelling subsided.

“We often think how one could live with this type of injury, but Patrick did”.

The disaster left his face completely disfigured and turned around his life as he lost his eye lids, ears, lips, a major part of his nose, and facial hair. “He persisted”, Rodriguez said. Hardison became a patient of Rodriguez’s while the doctor was at UMMC and continued to work with him after he was recruited to join NYU Langone.

Rodriguez explained that everything has to be perfectly positioned, including the bones, muscles, ear canals, lips and nerves. The surgeons paid special attention to the functional structures of the eyelids, he added. It was important to remove all of the man’s scars and get down to healthy tissue, Rodriguez said.

Simultaneous surgeries took place with Hardison on one operating table while Rodebaugh was on the other. Dr Rodriguez led the 150-person medical team that performed the procedure. The surgeons then re-attached the blood vessels, so that new blood could flow to the transplant, he said.

“From an overall standpoint, [Hardison is] doing great”, Rodriguez said. He will have to take anti-rejection drugs for the rest of his life to prevent his body’s immune system fighting the transplant. “When it happens to Hardison”, says the NY Magazine, “doctors will treat it with massive amounts of immunosuppressants and steroids and hope for the best”. Custom-made metal plates and screws were used to further flawless the contour and symmetry of the transplanted face.

“How do you think they’ll react?” But now we’ve proven that the ability to transplant the face has advanced and likely gone, it’s advanced more than the science of immunosuppression.

Hardison underwent 71 surgeries over a decade yielding no significant improvements; he was on track to losing his sight and was addicted to pain medication.

Follow Sara G. Miller on Twitter @SaraGMiller.