Connie Culp

Connie Culp is the first U.S. patient to receive a face transplant. She was shot in the face with a shotgun in 2004 and received the transplant operation in 2008. She gave a press conference May 5, 2009 to show the results so far.

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NEWSWORTHY: Amazing Face Transplant

Written by secreteer on

From: beinginwardoutward.blogspot.com

I already saw this face transplant result on the news a month ago, but when I did I just passed it off as yet another ho-hum medical marvel. When I got to chance upon it again online, I found out more about it and got amazed by the story behind the procedure.

The recipient of the face transplant is Connie Culp. The identity of the donor was not disclosed anymore. Culp's husband, Thomas, shot her in 2004, then turned the gun on himself. He went to prison for seven years. His wife was left clinging to life. The blast shattered her nose, cheeks, the roof of her mouth and an eye. Hundreds of fragments of shotgun pellet and bone splinters were embedded in her face. She needed a tube into her windpipe to breathe. Only her upper eyelids, forehead, lower lip and chin were left.

A plastic surgeon got a look at her injuries two months later. She endured 30 operations to try to fix her face. Doctors took parts of her ribs to make cheekbones and fashioned an upper jaw from one of her leg bones. She had countless skin grafts from her thighs. Still, she was left unable to eat solid food, breathe on her own, or smell. Another procedure soon ensued where the doctors replaced 80 percent of Culp's face with bone, muscles, nerves, skin and blood vessels from another woman who had just died. A month after she was able to eat pizza, chicken and hamburgers for the first time in years.

Culp, in one of her recent interviews, recalled how she was in a grocery store one day and a kid who saw her suddenly remarked to his mom how she lied about monsters not being true when he just saw Culp's face as being of a monster. Such recollection can really break a person's heart. It was good that Culp remained strong in the middle of her plight.

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