Patrick Hardison Received A New Face After Third-degree Burns, This Is Him Today – Animals
“You go to the ball field, you have to prepare yourself for the kid that goes running off screaming.”
Patrick lost all hope to have a “normal” life, but it all changed when a French woman Isabelle Dinoire got a face transplant after her dog disfigured most of it. This procedure was revolutionary and it gave Patrick hope that he could be the next standing in line.
He met with doctor Eduardo D. Rodriguez from the NYU Langone Medical Center in New York who promised him he’ll do everything he could to do the face transplant as successful as possible
IF they find a matching donor. One day LiveOnNY, a nonprofit that coordinates organ donations in the New York found a match.
The 26-year-old David Rodebaugh sustained a severe head injury in a bike accident and has been declared as brain dead. His face was going to be transplanted on Patrick’s.
Nancy Millar, David Rodebaugh’s mother, decided to donate her son’s organs, including his face: “I said, ‘You better save his face. He has the face of a porcelain doll.’ And he’s a donor — we had talked about it,” Millar told People.
She hoped that her sons legacy, or at least a part of him, will be used to save someone else’s life, including Patrick’s.
“When I met Patrick, I saw this strength, this strong, manly, burly kind of energy in him — that David had,” Nancy recalled.
“David wanted to be a firefighter, an I knew if this guy was a firefighter — he was willing to walk into a fire to save people and risk his own life — then he had the strength that David had.”
The day finally came, and the procedure was performed by 100s of professionals and lasted for 26 hours.
