US first face transplant

Five years ago, a shotgun blast left a ghastly hole where the middle of her face had been. Five months ago, she received a new face from a dead woman.
Connie Culp stepped forward Tuesday to show off the results of the nation's first face transplant, and her new look was a far cry from the puckered, noseless sight that made children run away in horror.
Culp's expressions are still a bit wooden, but she can talk, smile, smell and taste her food again. Her speech is at times a little tough to understand. Her face is bloated and squarish, and her skin droops in big folds that doctors plan to pare away as her circulation improves and her nerves grow, animating her new muscles.
But Culp, a 46-year-old from Unionport, Ohio, had nothing but praise for those who made her new face possible.

BEFORE




Connie Culp, who underwent the groundbreaking procedure in December after her husband shot her four years earlier, praises the medical staff that made her new face possible.








SECOND FACE TRANSPLANT

The Massachusetts man who received the nation's second face transplant asked for a mirror four days after the operation.



James Maki

"I just wanted to see what the new Jim looked like," James Maki said in an interview with The Boston Globe published Thursday, his first public statements since the April 9 procedure.
Maki's face was disfigured in June 2005 when he fell onto the electrified third rail at a Boston subway station. He lost his nose, upper lip, cheeks, the roof of his mouth, as well as muscle, bone, and nerves.
For years he rarely went out because people would recoil when they saw him.
Maki, who grew up in Amherst, said he also struggled with substance abuse.

"My life up to that point was a mess," he said. "I knew if I had the surgery I'd have a chance for a normal life again."
He never thought about the possibility of a face transplant until 2007 when he saw Pomahac on television discussing the face transplant program he planned to start at the hospital.

Joseph Helfgot

He underwent the 17-hour operation after a Brookline man, Joseph Helfgot, died following a heart transplant. The men were about the same age and had similar skin tone.
The hospital did not charge Maki for the operation, which cost about $200,000. The doctors donated their time.