\nThe life story of Patrick Hardison from Mississippi is nothing less than a mind-blowing one. This man is the first American who has received a face transplant back in 2015 after his face and neck were left completely disfigured during a house fire.\n
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Patrick\u2019s life was a great one up until the day the tragedy struck in 2001.\n He worked as a volunteer firefighter earlier in his life, so when he got called to help with a house fire, he didn\u2019t hesitate. Sadly, once he entered the burning place, it collapsed on top of him and trapped him. He couldn\u2019t move and his torso and face were severely burnt.\n \u201cFor somebody who does what we do for a living, I\u2019ve never seen anybody burned that bad that was still alive,\u201d friend and first responder Jimmy Neal told after the accident.\n Patrick suffered third degree burns on his face and scalp. He also sustained burns to his head, neck, and upper torso. The fire also claimed his ears, lips, most of his nose, and even most of his eyelid tissue.\n \u201cI didn\u2019t actually see myself until probably November. I got injured in September,\u201d Patrick told Fox News. \u201cThey had cut a little pinhole in one of my eyelids because they had everything covered, skin graft. I looked in the mirror and all I could do, I said, \u2018this is it? I can\u2019t do this,\u2019\u201d he recalled.\n Over the years, this man was forced to undergo over 70 surgeries, as well as other procedures. He couldn\u2019t close his eyes and doctors were able to put together flaps of skin to protect his vision, but he was still facing the risk of going blind.\n Patrick couldn\u2019t eat without feeling excruciating pain. He just couldn\u2019t get used to this life because he couldn\u2019t look at himself in the mirror. Wherever he went, everyone starred at him, and he could barely stand being around people, even his children.\n In order to hide and protect himself, Patrick wore sunglasses and a baseball cap all the time. He also had ear prosthetic.\n \u201cI had kids. It was just a tough time. I never got a day off from the injury. When you walk out in public, it was daily. And, you know, it\u2019s just so \u2014 there\u2019s no way to explain everything,\u201d he told.\n \u201cYou go to the ball field, you have to prepare yourself for the kid that goes running off screaming.\u201dYears went by and Patrick lost hope of ever having a normal life. But then, French woman named Isabelle Dinoire received a partial face transplant after her face was severely disfigured by her pet dog. This procedure was revolutionary. It was the first ever of that kind. Surely, it gave a glimpse of hope to Patrick who at that point was truly struggling.\n Patrick met doctor Eduardo D. Rodriguez from the NYU Langone Medical Center in New York who told him he would do the transplant surgery if they find a matching donor. It wasn\u2019t easy, but one day, out of the blue, a donor appeared. LiveOnNY, a nonprofit that coordinates organ donations in the New York area, had found a match. The face Patrick was about to get belonged to 26-year-old David Rodebaugh who had sustained a massive head injury in a bike accident and had been declared brain dead.\n This young man\u2019s mother, Nancy Millar, decided to donate her son\u2019s organs, including his face. \u201cI said, \u2018You better save his face. He has the face of a porcelain doll.\u2019 And he\u2019s a donor \u2014 we had talked about it,\u201d Millar told People.\n The thought of someone receiving her son\u2019s face meant that David would continue to live on through the people whose lives he was about to save, including Patrick\u2019s.\n \u201cWhen I met Patrick, I saw this strength, this strong, manly, burly kind of energy in him \u2014 that David had\n \u201cDavid wanted to be a firefighter, an I knew if this guy was a firefighter \u2014 he was willing to walk into a fire to save people and risk his own life \u2014 then he had the strength that David had.\u201d\n The risk was enormous and Patrick was given a 50\/50 percent chance of survival. Luckily, it was a huge success. Patrick received a new face, scalp, ears, and ear canals. He also received eyelids which allowed him to blink naturally and save his vision.\n \u201cEverything in life has a risk,\u201d Patrick told\n \u201cWhen it\u2019s your time to go, you\u2019ll go\u2014whether you\u2019re walking down the street and get hit by a car or you\u2019re lying on the operating table.\u201d After he recovered from the swelling and he learned how to talk and swallow again, Patrick met his donor\u2019s mother. Nancy only had one request, to kiss Patrick on the forehead.\n \u201cI said, \u2018Can I kiss your forehead?\u2019\u201d Nancy said. \u201cThat\u2019s the one thing I wanted to do because every night before David went to bed when he was little, I kissed his forehead.\u201d\n \u201cI\u2019ve been waiting a year to meet her. I\u2019m just very grateful,\u201d Patrick added. \u201cWithout her, it wouldn\u2019t have been possible. It\u2019s like she\u2019s family. We connected that easily.\u201d\n Ever since the surgery, Patrick is taking anti-rejection drugs that prevent his immune system from rejecting the face, but he\u2019s thriving. He didn\u2019t only receive a new face but a new life too.\n Today, he is divorced and is working on a book which he hopes would serve as an inspiration to anyone who believes there is no way out from the situation they have found themselves in.\n \u201cBecause I want to show the world that you can have hope. I wouldn\u2019t want people that were like me years ago to think that\u2019s it, I have to live like this. You don\u2019t. You can accomplish anything,\u201d Patrick says.\n His survival and his recovery are dubbed miraculous. Thanks to Nancy, Dr. Rodriguez and his team, and Patrick\u2019s strong will, today, he is a happy man.\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The life story of Patrick Hardison from Mississippi is nothing less than a mind-blowing one. This man is the first American who has received a face transplant back in 2015 after his face and neck were left completely disfigured during a house fire. Patrick\u2019s life was a great one up until the day the tragedy\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":109372,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[670],"tags":[693],"class_list":{"0":"post-73916","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-news"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/inovatestory.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/241.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inovatestory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inovatestory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inovatestory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inovatestory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inovatestory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73916"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/inovatestory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73916\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":109376,"href":"https:\/\/inovatestory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73916\/revisions\/109376"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inovatestory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inovatestory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inovatestory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inovatestory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nFinally, the day of the transplant surgery had arrived. The procedure lasted for 26 long hours and was performed by a team of 100 professionals.\n