Wow what an awful situation but so amazing he is turning it around. A construction worker had his face horribly disfigured (see above)Â in a power line accident, and has undergone the first full face transplant performed in the United States.
(FP) – 25-year-old Dallas Wiens received a new nose, lips, skin, muscle and nerves from a deceased person in an operation paid for by the Defense Department, which hopes to use what is learned to help soldiers with severe facial wounds.
Dr. Bohdan Pomahac, who led the operation with a team of 30 doctors at a Boston hospital, said the man will not resemble “either what he used to be or the donor,” but something in between.
Wiens doesn’t seem to care who he looks like, instead just hopes to smile again and feel kisses from his 3-year-old daughter, saying:
“She says, `Daddy has a boo boo, but God and the doctors are making Daddy’s boo boo all better.’ She doesn’t care and she never has since day one that I was disfigured.”
His grandfather said:
“He could choose to get bitter or he could choose to get better. His choice was to get better. Thank God today he’s better.”
Although he had no insurance before the accident, luckily for Wiens the new federal health care law is allowing him to get covered under his fathers plan until he turns 26 to pay for the expensive drugs he will have to take to prevent rejection of his new face.
After his father’s insurance, he hopes to be eligable for Medicare which insures the disabled.
