Groundbreaking face transplant: After a

firefighter was injured on duty, a deceased 26year-old cyclist gave him his life back

Patrick Hardison before the fire. (Photos courtesy NYU Langone)

By Ariana Eunjung Cha-November 17

Patrick Hardison was working as a volunteer firefighter in his hometown of Senatobia,

40 miles south of Memphis, when he got a desperate call. A house was in flames, with
a woman trapped inside. Hardison arrived on the scene and raced inside, moments
before the roof suddenly collapsed. His helmet was knocked off, and he felt his mask
melting. He closed his eyes and jumped out the window.
Hardison lost his eyelids, ears, lips and most of his nose, as well as his hair, because
of that fire. He also had disfiguring third-degree burns across his entire face, head,
neck and upper torso. His skin was so badly damaged that he was not even able to
close his eyes completely.
"From that day on, Sept. 5, 2001, there was no normal tissue left throughout his
face," Eduardo D. Rodriguez, chair of plastic surgery at NYU Langone Medical Center,
said in recounting the first responder's story.

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Watch volunteer firefighter Patrick Hardison before and after his 26-hourlong face transplant surgery in August. (Ashleigh Joplin/NYU Langone
Medical Center)
In a press conference on Monday, the medical center announced that Hardison, now
41 and a father of five, had undergone the world's most extensive face transplant to
date. The donor was a young BMX cyclist from Ohio named David Rodebaugh, whose
family donated his liver, kidneys, and both eyes to help other patients. A representative
from LiveOnNY, which works to match donors with recipients in the New York
metropolitan area, said his mother didn't hesitate when asked about the face
transplant and called her son "a free spirit who loved life."
Rodebaugh died in July when he crashed and hit his head while riding in Brooklyn. He
was 26 -- virtually the same age as Hardison was when he was injured.

David Rodebaugh, who donated his face, liver, kidneys and other organs to other
patients and research, had won several cycling competitions, gaining a loyal following
of fans and admirers in New York and across the country in the close-knit BMX cycling
community. (Courtesy of LiveOnNY)
The years following that accident were full of dark times for the young Mississippi
firefighter.
He underwent more than 70 surgeries that involved multiple grafts from his leg to his
face, but he was still very disfigured -- with "no semblance of normal anatomy," as
Rodriguez put it -- and had to hide behind sunglasses and a baseball cap whenever
he went out. Talking or eating caused tremendous pain.
A friend at Hardison's church heard about the work Rodriguez had done at the

University of Maryland Medical Center for another man whose face had been
damaged and contacted the surgeon on his behalf. 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.
The transplant operation, which took place Aug. 14, was funded by a grant from NYU
Langone. The hospital estimates it cost between $850,000 and $1 million.

A firefighter who was badly disfigured in 2001 is doing well, doctors say.
Volunteer firefighter Patrick Hardison of Senatobia, Miss., is shown in these beforeand-after photos of his face transplant surgery, which was called the worlds most
comprehensive one to date. It was performed at New York Universitys Langone
Medical Center. NYU Langone Medical Center/via Reuters
In the 26-hour surgery, Rodriguez and a team of more than 100 doctors, nurses and
technical assistants were able to give Hardison a new face. Unlike previous face
transplants, which involved delicately stitching parts of another person's skin, lips,
bones, muscles and/or blood vessels onto a patient, this one involved a
comprehensive graft of both the front and back of the head that was described as a
kind of "hood." It included the scalp, ears and ear canals, parts of the bone from the
chin and cheeks, and an entire nose. Surgeons were also able to
replace Hardison's eyelids, including the muscles that control blinking.
The team worked in two groups, in two adjoining operating rooms. One was
responsible for procuring the face from the donor along with other organs which were
to help other patients and the second on Hardison.

Surgeons said encouraging signs were evident even as he was still in surgery:
"Patricks new face, particularly his new lips and ears, were robust with color,
indicating circulation had been restored." Soon the hair on his scalp and face began
growing back. Within a week, he was able to sit up in a chair.
The hospital said that just three months after the surgery -- a critical period when most
rejections occur -- Hardison is "doing well and is quickly returning to his daily routines."
I am deeply grateful to my donor and his family, Hardison said in a statement. Even
though I did not know who they would be, I prayed for them every day, knowing the
difficult decision they would have to make in order to help me. I hope they see in me
the goodness of their decision."

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Rodriguez said that "when I met Patrick and heard his story, I knew that I had to do all
I could to help him."
He said one of the most moving moments for him was when Hardison went out to
Macy's in New York after his surgery to buy clothes. For him it was so remarkable that
no one stared at him. ... It was a very emotional exchange for us, Rodriguez said.
The medical science behind transplants has been progressing at a rapid pace in
recent years. Patients have seen miraculous
results with womb transplants,penis transplants and hand transplants as well as
tongue transplants.
The world's first partial face transplant was performed in 2005 in France on a woman
who lost her lips, cheeks, chin and most of her nose after she was mauled by her dog.
The first full face transplant took place in 2010 in Spain. The procedures set off a
firestorm of ethical debate about whether such risky surgeries should be undertaken to
improve someone's quality of life rather than save it.

2012: Surgeon Eduardo D. Rodriguez explains the extensive full face transplant
completed on Richard Lee Norris, pictured at left, during a news conference in March
at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore. (AP Photo/Gail Burton)
In 2012, the University of Maryland Medical Center announced that it had completed
what was then the most comprehensive face transplant on 37-year-old Richard Lee
Norris, who had been disfigured after a gun accident 15 years earlier. The 36-hour
operation involved more than 150 doctors, nurses and staff members.
The Washington Post corresponded with Norris about his experience later that year:
Everything from the scalp to the midline of my neck was replaced,
including the jaw bones, teeth, part of my tongue, muscles, and
nerves, said Norris, who has retained his eyesight through the gun
accident and the subsequent surgeries. The days immediately following
the transplant were promising. Norris was taken off his postoperative
ventilator, and within the first week he was able to shave his face and
brush his teeth. When Norris saw his new face in a mirror for the first
time, he wrote, the only thing I could do was hug Dr. Rodriguez.
[After full face transplant, Virginia man comes out of hiding]
In total, roughly 35 patients worldwide have had face transplants. The risk of
complications, even death, are very high. Even if the initial surgery, which is
enormously complicated and dangerous, goes well, face transplant patients like

those receiving donor organs like a heart or kidney face the significant risk that
their body will reject the foreign part. As a result, many doctors believe these patients
will have to take immunosuppressant drugs their whole lives.

2015: Charla Nash chats with a neighbor on the speakerphone in her bedroom at her
second-story apartment in Boston. The Department of Defense is following Nash's
progress, after funding her full-face transplant surgery in 2011. (AP/Charles Krupa)
The U.S. military is funding a study that is attempting to wean one face transplant
patient Charla Nash off such medications, which can make the patients more
vulnerable to other illnesses. But its experiment is still in the early stages. Doctors
hope that Nash, who was left without lips, eyes or eyelids after being attacked by an
employer's pet chimpanzee in 2009 and received a face transplant in 2011, will
be able to replace the immunosuppressant drugs with Interleukin-2. The latter can
have less serious side effects and is usually used to treat cancers.
[The military has high hopes for face transplants]
Below is a look at other patients who have received face transplants in recent years.

2013: An employee at a stonemason's workshop with a face transplant and only

identified as "Grzegorz" (L) is pictured next to Adama Maciejewski, head of the
operation team (R) during a press conference in July in Gliwice, Poland. Polish
doctors carried out the world's first life-saving face transplant weeks after a 33-yearold man was disfigured by a machine in a workplace accident. (Bartek
Wrzesniowski/AFP/Getty Images)

2013: Dallas Wiens and Jamie Nash pose for pictures after getting married at Ridglea
Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Tex. in March. Wiens was the first American to receive a
full face transplant after accidentally touching a high voltage wire while on a
construction job and met Nash at a burn victim support group after Nash had been in a
bad car accident that left her with severe burns throughout her body. (Ian C. Bates/The
Dallas Morning News/Reuters)

2013: Marinda Righter (L), daughter of face donor Cheryl Denelli-Righter, kisses face
transplant recipient Carmen Blandin Tarleton during a news conference at Brigham
and Women's Hospital in Boston in May. Tarleton, who was attacked by her estranged
husband and doused with lye in June 2007, underwent the transplant in February.
(Jessica Rinaldi/Reuters)
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