It’s likely that you’ve heard a lot of stories that will blow your mind, but the one about the life of Patrick Hardison, who was from Mississippi, is about to blow your head completely!
Patrick was the first man to undergo a face transplant in 2015. In 2001, he was caught in a burning house, which resulted in his face being completely deformed. In 2015, Patrick became the first man to receive a face transplant.
When he was younger, he started out on a route that was more modest by becoming a volunteer firefighter. He never hesitated for a moment whenever his assistance was required, until the day that a house collapsed on top of him and ensnared him. Both his face and his torso had suffered severe burns.
“[My mask] was melting to my face,” Patrick shared a dreadful memory from his personal experience. At that point, my hose had already melted.
“For somebody who does what we do for a living, I’ve never seen anybody burned that bad that was still alive,” said Johnny Neal, a friend and first responder, when asked about seeing Patrick after the accident. “I’ve never seen anybody burned that bad that was still alive.”
The wounds that Patrick sustained on his face and head were categorized as burning of the third degree. In addition, he received burns on his head, neck, and upper half of his body. His lip tissue, along with the majority of the tissue in his nose and eyelids, was completely obliterated.
In all honesty, I didn’t see myself until probably the month of November. I was hurt in September,” Patrick said in an interview with Fox News. Due to the fact that they had everything covered, including the skin transplant, they had made a small incision at the corner of one of my eyes. When I stared in the mirror, the only thing that came out of my mouth was, “Is this it? “I am unable to finish this,” he recalled.
Although it may be hard to believe, Patrick had to go through more than seventy surgeries and other procedures. He was unable to cover his eyes, and although the medical professionals were able to stitch together flaps of skin to safeguard his vision, there was always the possibility that he would lose his sight.
The agony was tremendous each and every time he consumed food. He couldn’t stand to look at himself in the mirror, and people stared at him wherever he went. He was the center of attention. It was impossible for him to associate with other people, not even with his own children…
In order to safeguard both his appearance and his well-being, Patrick wore a baseball cap and was always wearing sunglasses. Additionally, he possessed an ear prosthesis.
“I was a mother. Simply put, it was a challenging period. Due to the injury, I was never able to take a day off. If you were to go out in public, it would happen every day. According to what he said with Yahoo! Sports, “And, you know, it’s just so — there’s no way around explaining everything.”
“You go to the ball field, and you have to get yourself ready for the child who runs away screaming,” the coach said.
Patrick gave up all hope of living a “normal” life, but all changed when Isabelle Dinoire, a French woman, underwent a face transplant despite the fact that her dog had scarred the majority of her face. Patrick was given the hope that he could be the next person in line as a result of this groundbreaking method.
He had a meeting with a physician named Eduardo D. Rodriguez from the NYU Langone Medical Center in New York, who assured him that he would do all in his power to make the face transplant as successful as possible, provided that they were able to locate a donor who was a match. LiveOnNY, a charitable organization that works to coordinate organ donations in the state of New York, discovered a match one day.
In a bike accident, David Rodebaugh, who was 26 years old at the time, had a severe head injury and has been deemed brain dead as a result of his injuries. The transplantation of his face onto Patrick’s was about to take place.
It was Nancy Millar, David Rodebaugh’s mother, who made the decision to donate her son’s organs, including his face. She stated, “You better save his face. He looks like a porcelain doll in terms of his face. According to Millar, who spoke to People, “And he is a donor; we had talked about it.”
She had high hopes that the legacy of her son, or at the very least a portion of him, would be utilized to save the life of another individual, including Patrick’s.
Nancy recalled, “When I met Patrick, I saw this strength, this strong, manly, burly kind of energy in him — that David had.” David seems to have possessed this kind of vitality.
“I knew that if this guy was a firefighter, he had the strength that David had because he was willing to walk into a fire to save people and risk his own life,” David said. “I knew that if this guy was a firefighter, then he had the resilience that David had.”
When the day finally arrived, the procedure was carried out by hundreds of trained specialists and lasted for a total of twenty-six hours.
Every operation, of course, comes with some degree of danger, and this particular one had a fifty percent chance of being successful. On the other hand, Patrick was fortunate enough to rely on the guidance of a large number of experts. A new face, scalp, ears, ear canals, and eyelids were all transplanted into him, which enabled him to blink in a normal manner and preserved his vision.
In an interview with Time Magazine, Patrick stated, “Everything in life has a risk.”
Whether you are laying on the operating table or strolling down the street and getting hit by a car, you will go when it is your time to go. This is true regardless of the circumstances.
Patrick had a meeting with Nancy, the donor’s mother, when the swelling had subsided and he had regained the ability to speak and swallow. She had one request that would warm her heart, and that was to kiss Patrick on the forehead.
I asked, “Would you mind if I kissed your forehead?” remarked Nancy. “That was the one thing I wanted to do because, when David was a little boy, I kissed his forehead every night before he went to bed,” she said.
I’ve been anticipating the moment for a whole year now. I just want to express my gratitude,” Patrick continued. There is no way that it could have been accomplished without her. It is almost as if she is a member of the family. That was a simple connection for us.”
Patrick and other individuals who have received an organ transplant are required to take anti-rejection medications. These medications inhibit the natural defense mechanism of the body, sometimes known as the immune system, in order to prevent the immune system from identifying the transplant as a “foreign invader” and rejecting it. Patrick, on the other hand, is doing exceedingly well with his new life and facial outlook.
As of right now, he is divorced and is in the process of writing a book that will assist individuals who believe there is no way out of a scenario that they have created for themselves.
“Because I want to demonstrate to the community that it is possible to have hope. It is not something I would want individuals who were in my position many years ago to believe that this is the only way I have to spend my life. That is not the case. According to Patrick, “You are capable of achieving anything.”
His recuperation as a whole, as well as the possibility that he may survive the accident, has been referred to as miraculous. The fact that Patrick is a happy guy today is a direct result of the generous offer made by Nancy as well as the efforts of all the professionals who worked on his face.
