Connie Culp - First Full Face Transplant Recipient Speaks

May/2009 - Shot in the face by her husband four-years-ago Connie Culp of Hopedale Ohio was left disfigured. For four years she had no nose. The bony structure that once supported her face was gone, as was most of her face. She could not breathe other than through a tracheotomy, could not smell, could not even drink or eat normally. Several dozen reconstructive surgeries left her not much better off. Connie became afraid to go out in public where doctors say children would run away from her because of her appearance. Doctors at the Cleveland Clinic set out to try something that had never been done before, not to the extent they had planned for Connie, a total face transplant. Specialists say their purpose for even considering the surgery is not cosmetic. Their goal was to restore her facial functions and to give Connie the ability to eat and breath, to smell and to interact socially as normally as possible once again. Surgeons in December removed not just the skin, but the bony structures underneath, the n

 

 

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