In 2004, Connie Culp’s husband, Thomas, aimed a shotgun at her face and pulled the trigger. Soon after, he turned the gun on himself.
Miraculously, both of the Culp’s survived. Thomas received minor injuries and is now serving 7 years in jail. Connie was left deformed beyond recognition. She had everything taken away from her. Last December, she got some of it back, becoming the nation’s first recipient of a face transplant.
According to the guardian.co.uk Web site “The shotgun pellets blasted away the middle of her face, removing her nose, cheeks, roof of her mouth and destroying an eye. She lost the ability to breath through her mouth, to eat solid food, to feel a kiss. She was in constant pain.”
For the last few years, in addition to the physical pain, Culp has dealt with the emotional pain of being viewed as a monster. Children ran away from her. People called her names.
Yahoo News reports that on Tuesday, May 5, she unveiled her new face – the result of 22 hours of surgery by a team of doctors who replaced Culp’s face with bone, muscles, nerves, skin, and blood vessels from a woman donor who had just died.
According to Fox News, only seven face transplants have been reported worldwide, with three of those occurring in just the past two weeks.
“I guess I’m who you came to see,” Culp said to the cameras at a news conference at a Cleveland clinic.
In my opinion, Culp's outcome makes me feel as though we are living in the sci-fi future I've waited for since I was a child. If we are able to replace or transplant a face from one person to another, the medical breakthroughs that are to come excite me and make me wonder what else is possible.
(Photo Credit: jacquiscloset @ Flickr)
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