A team of surgeons from New York University has performed the first-ever hands and face transplant!

Despite concerns over the coronavirus and extra precautions that had to be taken, the team from NYU Langone Health performed a face and double hand transplant for a 22-year-old New Jersey resident who had been severely burned in a horrific car crash. 

The surgery included transplanting both hands and the full face of a single donor. It marked the first successful combination transplant case of its kind in the world. The man’s name is Joe Dimeo, and he now literally can smile for the first time in years!

According to CNN, In July 2018, Dimeo fell asleep at the wheel of his car on Route 22 in New Jersey. He lost control, and the car hit the curb, flipping over before bursting into flames.

A passerby pulled him out of the car before it exploded, but Dimeo still suffered third-degree burns over nearly 80% of his body. The damage was so severe that, though Dimeo survived, he was left without eyelids, ears, and much of his fingers. He also had severe scarring on his face and neck that limited his range of motion. The scars even partially covered his eyes.

“He’s the most highly motivated patient I’ve ever met,” Dr. Eduardo Rodriguez, head of the team that completed the unprecedented surgery, told reporters at a news briefing following the unprecedented procedure.

Though the surgery occurred in August of last year, Dimeo’s doctors waited to ensure the transplants were not rejected before contacting the press and calling the operation a success.

“There have been over a hundred hand transplants performed successfully, and close to 50 face transplants,” Rodriguez said. “So fundamentally, there was no reason why they couldn’t occur together, successfully.”

Rodriguez added that there have only been two previous attempts to complete a surgery like this, and both were unsuccessful.

“We needed to avoid infection, we needed to have this operation occur as fast as possible, we had to be very selective with the donor, and we had to implement every state-of-the-art technology that would ensure the complete success of Joe’s operation, and that’s exactly what we did.”

“Joe is healthy, he’s young, he’s strong, he loves to exercise, he eats healthy, and he had that one special element which is going to be required for this operation,” Rodriguez said, “A high level of motivation. And he had a tremendous sense of hope.”

The operation took 80 people across six surgical teams and two adjoining operating rooms. The operation meant removing the healthy face and hands of a recently deceased donor in one OR while removing Joe’s damaged face and hands in another.

Graphic Details of the Landmark Surgery

The operation was one that could very well have ended Dimeo’s life if not done correctly, Rodriguez said.

Dimeo’s scared and useless hands were carefully severed just above the wrist, along with a host of tendons, muscles, veins, and nerves, to prepare him for the new limbs. The right hand, Dimeo’s dominant hand, came first. Then the left.

“We have to replace 21 tendons, three major nerves, five major vessels, two major bones,” Rodriguez said of each hand. Each structure had to be labeled, he added, to ensure proper reassembly.

After Dimeo’s face was removed, small plates were put on his chin to help attach his new face, and the bridge of the donor’s nose was grafted in place of his own. Nerves and vasculature were spliced together to bring blood and eventually feeling to the tissue.

After 23 hours of surgery, the final stitch was made. Forty-five days in intensive care came next, followed by nearly two months of inpatient rehab, where Dimeo heroically learned to open his new eyelids, to move his new hands, and to smile.

At the press event following the announcement of the surgery’s success, Dimeo showed off his newfound dexterity and freedom. With his new hand, he fished a written statement out of the breast pocket of a sport coat and held it up to read before newly opened eyes.

“I want to share my story to give people hope in the world,” he said.

“I’d like to recognize the selflessness of my donor and how none of this would be possible without his sacrifice,” Dimeo said. “Thank you.”

Asked how he’s felt over the past few months of rehabilitation, Dimeo said he felt he’d been given a “second chance at life.”

“There’s no excuse to not be motivated or not to do my therapy,” he said

“My hands aren’t there yet. I have to keep practicing,” he added.

“It’s kind of like when you’re a baby. They’re just moving their hands all the time until they get that ability to do stuff. I’ve got new hands now, just like them,” he said.

“There’s always light at the end of the tunnel,” Dimeo said. “You never give up.”