• 9 years ago
NEW YORK — A 41-year-old father of five underwent an extensive full-face transplant last August which saw a 150-person medical team at NYU's Langone Medical Center perform a procedure that had only a 50 percent chance of success.

Reuters reports that in September 2001, volunteer firefighter Patrick Hardison was badly burned in a house fire in Senatobia, Mississippi. He underwent 71 operations over the next fourteen years, as doctors tried to restore his face through skin grafts.

Hardison later met plastic surgeon Eduardo Rodriguez, who proposed a full face transplant, according to New York Magazine. After waiting more than a year, a suitable donor was finally found — David Rodebaugh, a 26-year-old bike mechanic who was fatally injured in a cycling accident.

The procedure, which took place on August 14, 2015, involved slitting the skin at the back of Rodebaugh's head, peeling off each side toward the ears while including key pieces of bone around the nose, chin and cheekbones.

After the scarred tissue on Hardison's face was cut away, the donor face was laid over his head and secured into position using screws and metal plates — a grueling 26-hour operation.

Hardison's new face swelled by 50 percent immediately after, but gradually calmed down with the help of immunosuppressants he will need to take for the rest of his life.

The entire operation cost between $850,000 and $1 million, the same cost as a liver transplant, and was paid for by a university grant, according to the Guardian.

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