Before or after, I'm not sure which is better

TestTransmission

An Ohio woman who was the first US recipient of a near-total face transplant has unveiled the results of her surgery, which restored key features after she was shot by her husband five years ago.

Connie Culp, 46, who was left without a nose, a palate or lower eyelids following a shotgun blast in 2004, underwent a 22-hour operation at the Cleveland Clinic in the state of Ohio last December.

Surgeons transplanted about 80 per cent of Ms Culp's face using facial tissue from a dead woman that was placed like a mask atop her own.

Almost her entire face was replaced, except for the forehead, upper eyelids, lower lip and chin.

The team of 11 surgeons who performed the operation said Ms Culp, who was missing bone support and had been unable to eat or breathe without a tube in her windpipe, could now perform functions normally.

"We think this ... procedure has changed her life dramatically," Maria Siemionow, the clinic's director of plastic surgery research, told a news conference.

Although the clinic had revealed the surgery in December, Ms Culp's identity and the incident that had disfigured were kept under wraps.

"I guess I'm the one you came to see today," Ms Culp said after being helped up to the podium.

"[But] I think it's more important that you focus on the donor family that made it so I could have this person's face."

When Risal Djohan, a plastic surgeon at the clinic, first looked at Ms Culp's injuries two months after she was shot, "he told me he didn't think, he wasn't sure, if he could fix me, but he'd try," the patient recalled.

"Here I am, five years later. He did what he said - I got me my nose," she said with a laugh.

Dr Siemionow said the transplant "was the most complex functional restoration in the world today".

"We have transplanted for the first time in the world the largest scheme of the face, which was combined with the bones, with the entire nose and functional units, including lower eyelids, upper lip and including also her palate," she said.

The world's first partial face transplant was conducted in France in 2005.


http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/05/06/2562233.htm?section=world

Pete P Peterson

I have to say, I think she looks a lot better with glasses.

ChairmanCow

Yeah I'd have to say after too... She doesn't look like Krang from TMNT now

Senna

Wonder did she ever get freaky with that windpipe hole?

BeerWolf

LINK - This is how she looked BEFORE THE INJURY.

Poor woman

Mahatma coat

Anyone else reminded of Spittin Image when they look at the After Shot???

omyatari

jesus christ, poor woman indeed...
she should have been a real bad person for karma to get back at her like that ....

id go for a phantom of the opera look myself i think.

Sharpshooter

What has Karma got to do with her asshole of a husband blasting her face away with a shotgun?

dade

Sharpshooter wrote: »

What has Karma got to do with her asshole of a husband blasting her face away with a shotgun?

she probably nagged him or got in front of the TV when Monday night foot ball was on, ya know those crazy Americans

johnny_knoxvile

Senna wrote: »

Wonder did she ever get freaky with that windpipe hole?

i can see you are the type of person who gets a little over excited about sticking a vix stick up your nose!

omyatari

thats exactly what i was wondering.

Sharpshooter wrote: »

What has Karma got to do with her asshole of a husband blasting her face away with a shotgun?

minxie

at least the poor woman has a chance at
looking normal again,
some of the posts here would make you shudder

omyatari

minxie wrote: »

at least the poor woman has a chance at
looking normal again,
some of the posts here would make you shudder

with every respect to this woman, but i wouldnt exactly say that after the transplant she looks "normal".

MagicMarker

Jebus!!

minxie

omyatari wrote: »

with every respect to this woman, but i wouldnt exactly say that after the transplant she looks "normal".

maybe not in the conventional sense
but some kind of normality yes

4zn76tysfajdxp

Sharpshooter wrote: »

What has Karma got to do with her asshole of a husband blasting her face away with a shotgun?

Nothing. As difficult as it was to have his modship sank on him, I'm afraid his alibi is solid.

TheZohanS

Does anyone else think she kinda looks like Mrs Potato Head?

Jigsaw

I guess maybe there's only so much the surgeons can do. She looks far better but at the same time, far from normal. I suppose watching Face Off gave me an unrealistic idea of what could be achieved.

Gone Drinking

First thought

Sharpshooter

Payton Tasteless Tummy wrote: »

Nothing. As difficult as it was to have his modship sank on him, I'm afraid his alibi is solid.

O,right so.

omyatari

thanks Jigsaw, u put what i meant into better words

omyatari wrote: »

with every respect to this woman, but i wouldnt exactly say that after the transplant she looks "normal".

Jigsaw wrote: »

I guess maybe there's only so much the surgeons can do. She looks far better but at the same time, far from normal. I suppose watching Face Off gave me an unrealistic idea of what could be achieved.

Gummy Panda

well she no longer looks like a Goomba so some improvement.

Hephaestus

Before or after, I'm not sure which is better

Sideshots make it an easy choice for me.

She must have some serious identity issues seeing a different face in the mirror.

Homer

/awaits Snyper or Turd Ferguson to say "I'd Hit That!!"

-_-

ibarelycare

She looks' like Stifler's mom in the "after" picture

markok84

http://www.businessandleadership.com/fs/img/special-reports/295px/tayto.jpg


Maybe she could be tayto's new spokesperson?

Quazzie

Meh!

I've done worse!

My name is URL

Should have gone to Specsavers

KTRIC

ibarelycare wrote: »

She looks' like Stifler's mom in the "after" picture

Please tell me you're blind ??? :eek:

ibarelycare

KTRIC wrote: »

Please tell me you're blind ??? :eek:

I think it's the mouth!

Noopti

She looks normal now, in a world de-sensitised to such looks from seeing Bo Selecta.

Seriously though, at least she now has some degree of normality - better then she did before anyway.

Noopti

ibarelycare wrote: »

I think it's the mouth!

I can definitely see where you are coming from. She has got Stilfers moms mouth.....

who what when

Does anyone know what punishment her husband received, whatever happened to him im pretty sure it wasnt as bad as what happened to his wife!!

shenanigans1982

On the bright side there is somebody out there for everyone.


http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j59/skunkman1978/arseface.jpg

ScumLord

She looks allot better, it's just a pity they used desperate Dans face for the transplant.

Best of luck to her, poor lady, she has had it very hard in life.
I hope she has an easier life from now on.
She must have suffered terribly with pain.

Sanjuro

omyatari wrote: »

with every respect to this woman, but i wouldnt exactly say that after the transplant she looks "normal".

Well having two eyes, a nose and a mouth is a helluva lot better than looking like Arseface from the comic Preacher. May not be conventionally normal, but it's as normal as anyone who's had their face removed with a shotgun can get.

Mr.Lizard

who what when wrote: »

Does anyone know what punishment her husband received, whatever happened to him im pretty sure it wasnt as bad as what happened to his wife!!

7 year sentence. 4 for aggrivated attempted murder plus 3 for committing said crime with a firearm. Apparently he now wears an eyepatch from where he shot himself during his suicide attempt. You can see him on the ohio offenders database (requires registration).

Acacia

omyatari wrote: »

with every respect to this woman, but i wouldnt exactly say that after the transplant she looks "normal".

Of course not, but how 'normal' can you expect to look after being shot in the face and getting surgery? So she may not look 'normal' in the every day sense of the word but a lot more normal than before the surgery.

AckwelFoley

Yea, i seen a picture of her on the news.

beauty is only skin deep...

and a few facial bones..and a nose..set of teeth..

omyatari

im sure it wont end here,
once everything is all well and healed, she might get some plastic touch ups.