Electrocuted man receives America’s first full face transplant

A TEXAS construction worker badly disfigured in a power line accident two years ago has received the United States’ first full face transplant at a Boston hospital.

More than 30 doctors, nurses and other staff at Brigham and Women’s Hospital led by plastic surgeon Dr Bohdan Pomahac performed the 15-hour operation last week on 25-year-old Dallas Wiens, of Fort Worth, Texas.

The electrical accident in November 2008 left Wiens 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.

Last autumn Wiens spoke poignantly about why he wanted a transplant and how he wanted to smile again and feel kisses from his three-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 world’s first face transplant, also a partial, was done in France in 2005 on a woman mauled by her dog. Doctors in Spain performed the first full face transplant last March for a farmer who was unable to breathe or eat on his own after accidentally shooting himself.

“Today’s tremendous news marks a new milestone in Brigham and Women’s legacy in transplant surgery. The pioneering achievement by the entire transplant team is a gift made possible by the most selfless act one human being can do for another, organ donation,” hospital president Betsy Nable said.