A team of medical professionals in New York City has successfully performed the most ambitious facial transplant ever attempted, involving the transfer of eyelids, scalp, ears and subcutaneous bony structures, to restore normal facial figures to a volunteer firefighter whose entire head was grievously burned while responding to a Mississippi house fire.

On Aug. 15, 2015, Patrick Hardison underwent a 26-hour procedure at New York University’s Langone Medical Center in New York, where surgeons grafted the full scalp, face and neck of 26-year-old bicycle messenger David Rodebaugh, who was declared brain-dead following an accident.

Eduardo Rodriguez, the NYU Langone plastic surgeon who led the team performing the procedure, called the successful transplantation “historic” and reported that, 93 days after the surgery was performed, Hardison has shown no sign of rejecting the donated tissue. While he will likely remain on anti-rejection drugs for his entire life, Hardison has already been able to reduce his medications, said Rodriguez.

Hardison, a husband and father of four, had lived with a severely disfigured face and head since Sept. 5, 2001, when he entered a burning house in search of a missing woman. After the home’s burning roof collapsed on him, he felt his protective mask melting on his face.

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