Badly Burned Texas Man Waits For Face Transplant UPDATED: 5/10/11
83 replies, posted
[url=http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130664990]Source[/url]
[url=http://www.ktla.com/videobeta/12570d4b-4b50-4b7c-9058-13bbdd0d9257/News/Texas-man-put-on-waiting-list-for-face-transplant]Video[/url] <-- :siren:PRETTY FUCKING GRAPHIC, YOU'VE BEEN WARNED:siren:
[release][quote][img]http://imgur.com/7KkCU.png[/img]
Dallas C. Wiens, before the accident[/quote]
Dallas C. Wiens wants to be able to smile, to smell the rain, to feel his 3-year-old daughter's kisses.
[quote][img]http://media.npr.org/images/ap//AP_News_Wire:_Health/1_CORRECTION_Face_Transplant.sff_300.jpg?t=1287699377[/img]
Dallas Wiens, 25, uses a cane to guide himself up his grandparents walkway in Fort Worth, Texas, Wednesday, Oct. 13, 2010. Weins was critically burned in a 2008 high-voltage power line accident and is waiting for a face transplant.[/quote]
Two years ago, Wiens' face was burned away in a horrible electrical accident that also left him blind. Although doctors were able to transfer skin and muscle from Wiens' back and thighs onto his charred skull, he still doesn't have lips, a nose or even eyebrows. Now, after about two dozen surgeries, the new federal health care law has helped make him eligible to become perhaps the third person in the U.S. to ever undergo a face transplant.
[quote][img]http://media.npr.org/images/ap//AP_News_Wire:_Health/3_Face_Transplant.sff_300.jpg?t=1287699378[/img]
Dallas Wiens, 25, sits on his parent's front porch in Fort Worth, Texas, Wednesday, Oct. 13, 2010. Weins was critically burned in a 2008 high-voltage power line accident and is waiting for a face transplant.[/quote]
"I do miss my sight," said Wiens, who lost his eyes in the accident. "But I miss the sensation of my face and my sense of smell the most."
Wiens underwent dozens of physical and psychological tests before Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston — one of only two U.S. centers to perform the procedure — approved him as a candidate this month. The federal health care law helped him overcome one hurdle by allowing the 25-year-old Fort Worth man to be covered by his father's insurance to pay for the expensive medication he'll need after the operation. Wiens will likely wait months more, according to doctors, before a donor is found.
[quote][img]http://media.npr.org/images/ap//AP_News_Wire:_Health/2_Face_Transplant.sff_300.jpg?t=1287699377[/img]
Dallas Wiens, 25, speaks on a cell phone in Fort Worth, Texas, Wednesday, Oct. 13, 2010. Weins was critically burned in a 2008 high-voltage power line accident and is waiting for a face transplant.[/quote]
"I'm a little nervous as you can expect with any major procedure like this. I'm extremely excited over the possibility of just having a normal life back," he said. "There's no words to describe what that would be like."
Wiens has no memory of the November 2008 accident that took his face. Working as a contractor, he was helping his brother and uncle paint a church when, while high above the ground on a boom lift, he hit a power line.
"I'm told I lost control of the lift and ended up moving directly into the power lines," he said.
He was in a coma for three months and spent a total of six months at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas undergoing surgeries. A smooth layer of skin now covers where his eyes and nose once were and he has learned to get around with the help of a walking stick. Although he has no lips or even teeth, he speaks with a strong, clear voice and is easy to understand.
"I see every day as a challenge, an opportunity for hope and joy. I'm happier now than I think I've ever been in my life," said Wiens, who lives in Fort Worth with his grandparents.
Wiens had no health insurance when he was injured; Medicaid paid for his initial care at Parkland. But he was dropped from the government health care program for the poor when his disability payments put him over its income limits.
He needed his father's insurance to help him pay for anti-rejection drugs he'll need after the surgery, which will cost $1,300 to $2,000 a month, Wiens said. He was able to qualify for his father's insurance because a provision of the federal health care law extends family insurance coverage to adult children until age 26.
Wiens turns 26 in May. As a disabled person, he'll be able receive Medicare by June.
The Department of Defense will pay for the cost of surgery, he said. It's underwriting the transplant with the hope of eventually being able to help soldiers with severe facial injuries.
Dr. Jeffrey Janis, chief of plastic surgery at Parkland Health and Hospital System, said when he met Wiens, his head was "a burned skull." Janis was the one who first told Wiens about the possibility of a face transplant.
"It's really miraculous that he was able to survive surgery, leave the hospital," Janis said.
About a dozen face transplants have been performed worldwide since the first one, a partial transplant in France in 2006. Wiens is currently the only person awaiting a face transplant at Brigham and Women's, a hospital spokesman said. And no one is currently listed for the procedure at the Cleveland Clinic, the only other U.S. center to previously perform the surgery.
A donor must match Wiens' blood type and have a similar skin color and texture, Dr. Bohdan Pomahac said in a statement from Brigham and Women's. Pomahac is among a team of more than three dozen who would perform the transplant at the hospital.
Wiens also knows that after the transplant, it will take time for him to regain feeling and functionality in his face.
He said his daughter — who refers to his facial deformity as his "boo boo" — and his faith have kept him motivated and given him a purpose.
"She says, 'Daddy has a boo boo, but God and the doctors are making Daddy's boo boo all better,'" said Wiens, who is in the process of getting a divorce. "She doesn't care and she never has since day one that I was disfigured."[/release]
Poor guy. I can't even imagine what he's going through; if that ever happened to me, I think I'd go insane...
Face transplant man.
Dear god, that poor soul.
:ohdear:
The fuck.
Is the video not working for anyone else? It just sits there "loading".
damn. I really feel sorry for him :(
I feel so fucking sorry for him, I wish we would be able to give him his normal face back
[QUOTE=M2k3;25559140]Is the video not working for anyone else? It just sits there "loading".[/QUOTE]
Nope, works just fine on my end
That would suck horribly, I feel bad for em.
wow hes getting a divorce too
I feel really bad for him too... I wish I could somehow help him out :/
:pwn:
[quote]the new federal health care law has helped make him eligible to become perhaps the third person in the U.S. to ever undergo a face transplant.[/quote]
But it's a BAD SOCIALIST LAW
Holy fucking shit. Look at -1:24 on that video.
:ohdear:
[QUOTE=ZekeTwo;25559950]But it's a BAD SOCIALIST LAW[/QUOTE]
He's waiting for a transplant.
Why isn't he getting it immediately? You missed that part [I]entirely[/I], and quite conveniently.
[QUOTE=Pretiacruento;25558811][img]http://media.npr.org/images/ap//AP_News_Wire:_Health/2_Face_Transplant.sff_300.jpg?t=1287699377[/img] [/QUOTE]
That reminded me of this [img]http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100806184128/courage/images/thumb/3/3b/Conway.jpg/180px-Conway.jpg[/img]
[QUOTE=jwk94;25560625]That reminded me of this [img_thumb]http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100806184128/courage/images/thumb/3/3b/Conway.jpg/180px-Conway.jpg[/img_thumb][/QUOTE]
Wow you're pathetic.
[QUOTE=Jenkem;25560595]He's waiting for a transplant.
Why isn't he getting it immediately? You missed that part [I]entirely[/I], and quite conveniently.[/QUOTE]
I don't think faces come around all that often. It's not like you can just cut a face off a dead dude, sew it on and expect it to work right.
holy
fucking
christ
that is one of the most fucked up things I have ever seen
at least he's fucking blind so he can't see what he looks like
sweet miserable fuck
:smith:
I think I'd rather be dead than live like that.
[QUOTE=JDK721v5;25561179]:smith:
I think I'd rather be dead than live like that.[/QUOTE]
At least he can't see himself. I think I'd loose the will to live if I looked like that. Can't imagine it's that painful though. There's no way he has nerve endings up there.
Those photos remind me of that story about a woman who got severely mauled by an angry Chimp.
I would rather be dead probably that be like that.
[img]http://www.waynefountain.net/scarab/FaceOff.jpg[/img]
You knew this was coming.
[QUOTE=ZekeTwo;25559950]But it's a BAD SOCIALIST LAW[/QUOTE]
Thank sweet zombie jesus that the government invented this technology.
I hope he gets through it alright.
He can't back out of the surgery now, lest he lose face