A GUN victim left badly disfigured when she was blasted in the face has shown off her incredible new look — taken from a dead woman. Docs in the US built a new face for Connie Culp, in America's first face transplant op, after gunshot wounds left her with a ghastly hole where her nose and cheeks should have been. Brave Connie, 46, from Ohio, was shot five years ago by her husband Thomas, who then turned the gun on himself. He went to prison for seven years and left Connie clinging to life with her nose, cheeks, the roof of her mouth and an eye shattered. Hundreds of fragments of shotgun pellet and bone splinters were also embedded in her face. For years Connie needed a tube into her windpipe to breathe — and only her upper eyelids, forehead, lower lip and chin survived the blast. According to Connie, she had to endure kids running away from her shouting "monster, monster". Then plastic surgeon Dr Risal Djohan stepped in and gave her hope. Connie said: “He told me he didn’t think, he wasn’t sure, if he could fix me, but he’d try.” She endured 30 operations to try to fix her face. Doctors took parts of her ribs to make cheekbones and fashioned an upper jaw from one of her leg bones. She had countless skin grafts from her thighs and was left unable to eat solid food, breathe on her own, or smell. Then on December 10, in a 22-hour operation, Dr Maria Siemionow led a team of doctors who replaced 80 per cent of Connie’s face. They used bone, muscles, nerves, skin and blood vessels from another woman who had just died. No information has been released about the donor or how she died, but her family members were moved when they saw before-and-after pictures of Connie, Dr Siemionow said. Connie added: “When somebody has a disfigurement and don’t look as pretty as you do, don’t judge them, because you never know what happened to them. “Don’t judge people who don’t look the same as you do. Because you never know. One day it might be all taken away.” Now Connie, who is from the small town of Unionport, near the Pennsylvania line, has told her doctors she just wants to blend back into society.
when i saw an article about transplant,i always think about Jacqueline saburido. The transplant's not bad and it gives hope to people in this situation...
It depends how strong your well to live and what kinda life style you can expect after it afher all this, even after surgery, she'll still face a lot of problems. Some of us might think it's better off dead than go through all of this. I read her husband only got like 7-9yrs in prison only...that's just messed up.
What the fuck!!?? seriously that is one strong willed woman.. if i was her i would have just killed myself coz my face is so ruined and the fact that i couldn;t breathe and eat proper ;S mehhh
yeah... i don't think i could do it.... i mean it in the most respectable way ever.. unless you got a legacy going... its quite hard to live your life dependent on others... but good for her! if she got the will to live through it, good. at least plastic surgery is being put to its intended use...
i guess she's a bit like the guy who got burnt in the fire and he has a proper burnt up face but still kind of a celeb... dunno what his name is tho
i see, thanks bbgirl =)... that explains the big oogly eye look. i wonder how much those surgeries costed her? pretty rich to have gone through so many... or maybe it was insurance. either way, I'm glad there's no word of the shotgun splinters having penetrated through to her brain and causing mental disabilities... or the attack having blinded her.
i read about this in the newspaper....cant believe the surgery took like 22hours... did ya see the piccie of her before the incident....?
