Face transplant patient featured on GQ cover page

[blerk]

 

 

Richard Norris was 22 when he shot himself in the face. This was back in 1997. He doesn't remember how or why it happened, but his mom, who was three feet away, said it was an accident. She remembers pieces of Richard's face showering her body. This was in the living room. The gunshot had blown off his nose, cheekbones, lips, tongue, teeth, jaw, and chin, leaving just his wide brown eyes and a swirl of nameless twisted flesh.

The miracle that would come to define Richard's life begins with these tragic details. Like most miracles, with each retelling, the edges of the story sharpen, the colors become more vibrant, and the shadows disappear. Ashamed of his appearance, Richard became a hermit, living for nearly a decade on a foggy mountaintop in rural Virginia with his parents. They covered the mirrors in the house so Richard wouldn't have to look at his hideous face. He stayed in his room even to eat, wore a black mask on the rare occasions he came out. According to legend, one time the cops stopped him at gunpoint, mistaking him for a robber.

Then one day, searching on the Internet, his mom found Eduardo Rodriguez, a Baltimore reconstructive facial surgeon. He promised Richard he would make him normal. Over the next few years, Rodriguez performed dozens of surgeries using Richard's own flesh, fashioning a nose-shaped appendage out of tissue from his forearm and a small chin out of flesh from his legs, but these crude approximations failed to make Richard normal. Meantime, Rodriguez had a grander idea in mind. He was driven to achieve perfection. He had been practicing face transplants on cadavers. What he envisioned for Richard was the most extensive transplant any surgeon had ever attempted: He would give Richard a whole new face.

http://www.gq.com/news-politics/newsmakers/201408/richard-norris

 

 

 

 

 

An interesting fact about the maxfacs who are at the forefront of this field: they're all trained dentists  :D. (Oral and maxillofacial surgery and all its subspecialities are considered both a dental and medical speciality.)

[DocM]

Yup, and increasingly they're using 3D printed structures for repairs.

Ex: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/mans-face-reconstructed-with-3d-printer-after-motorcycle-accident/

[Shiranui]

FACE ON