Joe Dimeo: The first person to receive a face transplant changed his life!

The first person to receive a face transplant in the world was Joe Dimeo, a young man of only 20 years old who gave up everything for lost after an accident in mid-2018 where he almost lost his life. At that time, Joe was traveling in his car along one of the streets in New Jersey when he suddenly fell asleep and lost control of the vehicle.

The first thing it collided with was the sidewalk, then the vehicle overturned to the point of catching fire. With the miraculous help of a transient, Joe managed to escape the flames of the car. From then on, Joe, who is now a man, spent several months in a hospital. Thanks to the accident, he had 3rd degree burns on a large part of his body.

Due to the severity of the burns, doctors were forced to amputate his fingertips, he also lost his ears, eyelids and lips. In short, the face of who at that time was a young man was completely disfigured since his face in that area was almost 80%.

The doctor who proposed the face transplant

Throughout the process to be able to rescue the natural appearance of Joe's face, he received almost 20 reconstructive surgeries with the support of his parents who never gave up and always looked for a way to help their son. However, a devastating moment came, as the plastic surgeon told him that he had run out of resources to help him, and that everything was lost.

Despite the surgeon's devastating words, Joe did not give up. In a period of 2 years, many specialists came into his life, among them Dr. Eduardo Rodríguez, who served as president of the Department of Plastic Surgery at NYU Langone Health. This doctor put on the table a proposal never seen before, it was a face transplant procedure that would help him regain his face and self-confidence.

With the proposal of specialist Eduardo Rodríguez, Joe commented the following: “I had never in my life heard that a surgery of this type could be done. But I said 'let's do it'. If the doctor made that proposal to me, it is because he knows how to do it. Actually he was quite excited, in fact, he felt more joy than nervousness, there was nothing I wanted more than to get my face back.”

The long-awaited moment had arrived, the face transplant would be possible

After several years of waiting to find a donor and be able to undergo a face transplant, on August 10, 2020, a person who could donate their face was finally found, who decided to remain anonymous.

The long-awaited moment had arrived, the extensive operation lasted no more and no less than 23 hours, which was followed by about 45 days of intensive care along with a couple of months of rehabilitation. The surgical team transplanted not only a face, but also two hands to the middle of Joe's forearm. In relation to his face, in total the ears, lips, eyelids, forehead, nose, eyebrows and the elements belonging to the lower area of ​​the skull, beard and cheeks were transplanted. The participants in the historic operation were 140 health professionals.

Words from the doctor in charge of Joe Dimeo's face transplant

After Joe Dimeo's heroic face transplant, the specialist in charge gave a motivating statement that consisted of the following words:

“In the history of medicine there have been more than a hundred hand transplants and approximately fifty face transplants, so there was no reason why we could not perform both interventions successfully on the same patient. We needed to be thorough with the possible infections that could occur, which is why we needed to do the intervention as quickly as possible, we had to be quite selective when choosing the right donor and we had to apply the best technologies of the moment for success. total was secured in Joe's operation, and that was exactly what we were able to achieve...

We began the operation by keeping a moment of silence with the aim of honoring the memory of the donor and his family, to respect their strong loss and to never forget all the donations that were made. In this type of intervention it is always important to keep in mind and recognize that a person must give up their life so that others can continue with theirs...

Joe is now out of danger, he is healthy, he is strong, he is young and he is one of the people who likes to exercise. In addition, he eats healthy, but the best of all is that he had a special element that was fundamental for this type of operations, since he had a high level of motivation and sense of hope which also served as motivation for us to do the best job. possible".

The moving story of Joe Dimeo's face transplant serves as an inspiration for medicine to do things the best way so that we can all have a great future. Let this impressive story reach all your friends so they can witness the excellent work that this group of doctors did to give a second breath to a patient's life.