41-year-old volunteer firefighter Patrick Hardison is a hero. His face was burned off during a home fire rescue in Senatobia, Mississippi in 2001. But after scores of skin graffs, he was unable to blink or sleep with his eyes closed.
The folks at NYU’s Langhorn thought they could help him out. So a 150-person medical team hooked him up with the world’s first face transplant, a 26-hour proceedure Estimated cost? $1 million, but it’s on the house. Now Hardison wears the face of 26-year-old David Rodebaugh, a Brooklyn extreme cyclist who was pronounced dead after a biking accident.
What an amazing time to be alive.