THEN AND NOW: Dallas Wiens following early procedures and after the transplant.
THEN AND NOW:Dallas Wiens (above) before his accident, following early procedures and after the transplant.
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It’s a miraculous about-face for the history books.
Just six weeks after receiving the nation’s first full face transplant, Dallas Wiens, a 25-year-old construction worker from Fort Worth, Texas, appeared in public for the first time yesterday to show off his new features — which prompted his young daughter to say, “Daddy, you’re so handsome.”
In footage aired on yesterday’s “Good Morning America,” Wiens — who had suffered horrifying burns to his head 2½ years ago when a boom lift he was operating snagged a power line — was reunited with his 3-year-old daughter, Scarlett, for the first time since his amazing surgery.
Wiens cited Scarlett as the reason he had signed on for the transplant in the first place.
“I could have lived like I was, no problem, if I did not have my daughter,” said Wiens, who has been left blind by the accident.
“But I could not bear the thought of her growing up and being asked questions, ‘Why does your daddy look different?’ And dealing with that all of her childhood.”
The devastating accident and the 22 surgeries that followed had left Wiens with a face without features.
All he had was a lipless mouth and a small goatee. He had no nose or eyes, and doctors even smoothed over his eye sockets with skin taken from other parts of his body.
Last March, a team of more than 30 doctors, nurses and anesthesiologists at Brigham and Woman’s Hospital in Boston worked for more than 17 hours to build Wiens a new face using one from an anonymous donor that included muscles, nerves and a piece of nasal bone.
They were even able to create the muscles and nerves he needed to make it move.
Wiens also regained his sense of smell, as it was only the outside part of his nose that had been damaged.
Wiens said he cried when he woke up from the miracle surgery and felt his new nose.
The first thing he smelled was hospital lasagna.
“But it smelled really, really good,” Wiens said.
Other phenomenal “firsts” for Wiens included blowing his nose and sneezing.
“This new face, it’s not who I am. The old face wasn’t, either,” he said. “Who you are is inside — it’s internalized. It’s who you show the world.”
Wiens was the second person to undergo a face transplant at Brigham and Woman’s Hospital. James Maki received a partial transplant in 2005 after accidentally falling face-first onto an electrified subway rail.
The world’s first full face transplant was done in Spain in 2010.