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A firefighter has received the first successful face transplant in New York

Face_Transplant_Program___NYU_Langone_Medical_Center
Patrick Hardison before the fire that changed his life forever.
NYU Langone

Patrick Hardison was fighting a mobile home fire in Senatobia, Mississippi, in 2001 when he got trapped inside. The flames melted his face mask, and when the other firefighters pulled him out, his face was still on fire.

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He spent the next two months in the hospital, and had more than 70 surgeries over the next decade. But the doctors couldn't reconstruct his eyelids, ears, and more.

Everything changed in 2012, when Hardison met Dr. Eduardo Rodriguez — a plastic surgeon now at New York University Langone Medical Center.

"Despite all of his injuries, he tried to fight, to be a productive member of society, to be a good father for his family," Rodriguez said at a press conference on Monday. "He persisted."

So the two decided to try a full face transplant to get Hardison's life back to normal.

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The procedure would be incredibly risky: Transplants run a high chance of rejection because the body's immune system can recognize foreign skin and attack it like an invader. They had a 50-50 shot of it working, according to Rodriguez.

Finding a donor was another struggle. They had to have the same size face, same blood type; similar height and weight; be fair-skinned like Hardison; and certain genes had to match, Helen Irving, President and CEO of LiveOnNY, a non-profit organization that helps find and support organ donors, said at the press conference.

David Rodebaugh 2
The donor, David Rodebaugh.
Courtesy of LiveOnNY

This July, David Rodebaugh, who used to race BMX bikes professionally, was in an accident in Brooklyn that threw him from his bike. By August 12, doctors declared him brain-dead — and he turned out to be a match for Hardison.

"I was able to call Dr. Rodriguez and say not only did we have a potential match for Patrick, but the family indeed had said yes," Irving said. "Patrick's donor had been found."

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On August 14, surgeons at NYU Langone performed the face transplant and today — Monday, November 14 — they told reporters that the procedure was a complete success.

The surgery took a total of 26 hours and more than 100 people. The team had repeatedly rehearsed the procedure, which had to be perfectly synchronized. For example, one team removed Rodebaugh's entire scalp, eyelids, ears, veins, skin down to the neck, and forehead tissue, which Rodriguez said took 12 hours. Meanwhile, another team was doing the same thing to Hardison's face.

patrick hardison before and after
Patrick Hardison before and after his face transplant.
NYU Langone

Then they made the transplant.

Surgeons had to disconnect all of the veins and nerves that connected Rodebaugh's face to the body, and reconnect them when they put Rodebaugh's face onto Hardison's (see an animation, below). Most importantly, Rodriguez said, they were able to transplant the eyelids — giving Hardison the ability to blink for the first time in over a decade.

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It has been 93 days, and Hardison's body has not rejected his new face. His swelling has gone down, and he can leave the hospital, plus reduce the amount of medications that suppress his immune system and prevent the likelihood of rejection.

family
Hardison and his family after his face healed.
NYU Langone

The procedure was the most complex face transplant every performed, and was the first done in New York state.

"This is not an operation that's for everyone," Rodriguez said. "It's for very courageous individuals. But we have proved that the science is there."

Only a handful of full face transplants have been performed before. The first in the world was successfully completed in Poland in 2013. The first in the US was just completed last year at Brigham & Women's Hospital.

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Rodriguez said Hardison's transplant cost between $850,000 and $1 million, including hospital stays, medications, and the surgery itself. (ABC News reported that NYU Langone paid for the cost in full.)

NYU Langone has a clinical trial in progress in order to perform face transplants, and Rodriguez said he plans to make the medical center the best in the country for the procedure, so there will likely be more life-changing stories to come.

Here's an animation of how the procedure unfolded:

Medicine
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