highlights

First US face transplant patient makes debut

(Agencies)
Updated: 2011-05-10 10:09

Full face transplant patient Dallas Wiens (R) is seen with his four-year old daughter Scarlette in this undated handout image. The 25-year-old Texas man has received the first full face transplant done in the United States, Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital said on May 9, 2011. More than 30 physicians, nurses, anesthesiologists and residents worked for more than 15 hours to replace the nose, lips, facial skin, muscles of facial animation and nerves of Dallas Wiens, disfigured in an electrical accident in 2008. [Photo/Agencies]

BOSTON - The recipient of the first facial transplant in the United States made his public debut on Monday, saying he will go home to Texas soon to be with his young daughter who told him his new face was handsome.

Dallas Wiens, 26, of Fort Worth had most of his facial features burned off by contact with a high-voltage wire in 2008 and underwent a 15-hour procedure two months ago to replace his face.

Since the transplant, Wiens said, the most rewarding moment came when he was reunited with his preschool daughter.

"She was amazed. She actually said, 'Daddy, you're so handsome,'" Wiens said at a news conference at Brigham and Women's hospital.

A team of more than 30 medical experts at the hospital, a teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School, replaced his nose, lips, skin, muscles of facial animation and nerves in March, using an anonymous donor.

"To me the face feels natural. It feels as if it has become my own," Wiens said, speaking slowly but clearly.

Prior to the transplant, he could not smell, had trouble breathing and underwent more than 20 surgeries in Dallas.

When the transplant brought back his sense of smell, Wiens said the first scent he encountered was hospital lasagna.

It smelled delicious, he said.

Doctors, who were not able to restore Wiens sight, had said after the surgery that he would resemble neither his donor nor his old self. On Monday he wore dark glasses and his face drooped slightly to one side. His beard is growing back and he has a full head of hair.

In addition to his news conference, Wiens appeared on Monday on ABC's "Good Morning America."

Wiens' disfiguring accident occurred in November 2008 when he was working as a contractor. Helping paint a church, he was riding high on a cherry picker that struck a power line.

Wiens said that once home, he might attend college.

Over the next six to nine months he will be working to regain his facial muscle function and sensation in parts of his face, doctors said.

"Every step of the way was amazing," Wiens said. "It just felt like learning how to do everything over again but in a very real, very good way."

Doctors at Brigham and Women's performed the nation's second full face transplant in April on Mitch Hunter, 30, of Indiana, who suffered a severe shock from a high voltage electrical wire following a car accident in 2001.

Charla Nash, a Connecticut woman mauled by a chimpanzee in 2009, is on a waiting list for the surgery, the hospital said.

The world's first full face transplant was done in Spain in 2010.