Patrick Hardison was working as a volunteer firefighter in his hometown of Senatobia, 40 miles south of Memphis, when he got a desperate call. A house was in flames, with a woman trapped inside. Hardison arrived on the scene and raced inside, moments before the roof suddenly collapsed. His helmet was knocked off, and he felt his mask melting. He closed his eyes and jumped out the window.
Hardison lost his eyelids, ears, lips and most of his nose, as well as his hair, because of that fire. He also had disfiguring third-degree burns across his entire face, head, neck and upper torso. His skin was so badly damaged that he was not even able to close his eyes completely.
"From that day on, Sept. 5, 2001, there was no normal tissue left throughout his face," Eduardo D. Rodriguez, chair of plastic surgery at NYU Langone Medical Center, said in recounting the first responder's story.
Play Video1:25
Former volunteer firefighter undergoes face transplant surgery
Watch volunteer firefighter Patrick Hardison before and after his 26-hour-long face transplant surgery in August. (Ashleigh Joplin/NYU Langone Medical Center)
In a press conference on Monday, the medical center announced that Hardison, now 41 and a father of five, had undergone the world's most extensive face transplant to date. The donor was a young BMX cyclist from Ohio named David Rodebaugh, whose family donated his liver, kidneys, and both eyes to help other patients. A representative from LiveOnNY, which works to match donors with recipients in the New York metropolitan area, said his mother didn't hesitate when asked about the face transplant and called her son "a free spirit who loved life."
Rodebaugh died in July when he crashed and hit his head while riding in Brooklyn. He was 26 -- virtually the same age as Hardison was when he was injured.
David Rodebaugh, who donated his face, liver, kidneys and other organs to other patients and research, had won several cycling competitions, gaining a loyal following of fans and admirers in New York and across the country in the close-knit BMX cycling community. (Courtesy of LiveOnNY)
The years following that accident were full of dark times for the young Mississippi firefighter.
He underwent more than 70 surgeries that involved multiple grafts from his leg to his face, but he was still very disfigured -- with "no semblance of normal anatomy," as Rodriguez put it -- and had to hide behind sunglasses and a baseball cap whenever he went out. Talking or eating caused tremendous pain.
A friend at Hardison's church heard about the work Rodriguez had done at the University of Maryland Medical Center for another man whose face had been damaged and contacted the surgeon on his behalf. Hardison became a patient of Rodriguez's while the doctor was at UMMC and continued to work with him after he was recruited to join NYU Langone.
The transplant operation, which took place Aug. 14, was funded by a grant from NYU Langone. The hospital estimates it cost between $850,000 and $1 million.
In the 26-hour surgery, Rodriguez and a team of more than 100 doctors, nurses and technical assistants were able to give Hardison a new face. Unlike previous face transplants, which involved delicately stitching parts of another person's skin, lips, bones, muscles and/or blood vessels onto a patient, this one involved a comprehensive graft of both the front and back of the head that was described as a kind of "hood." It included the scalp, ears and ear canals, parts of the bone from the chin and cheeks, and an entire nose. Surgeons were also able to replace Hardison's eyelids, including the muscles that control blinking.
The team worked in two groups, in two adjoining operating rooms. One was responsible for procuring the face from the donor along with other organs which were to help other patients and the second on Hardison.
Surgeons said encouraging signs were evident even as he was still in surgery: "Patrick’s new face, particularly his new lips and ears, were robust with color, indicating circulation had been restored." Soon the hair on his scalp and face began growing back. Within a week, he was able to sit up in a chair.
The hospital said that just three months after the surgery -- a critical period when most rejections occur -- Hardison is "doing well and is quickly returning to his daily routines."
“I am deeply grateful to my donor and his family,” Hardison said in a statement. “Even though I did not know who they would be, I prayed for them every day, knowing the difficult decision they would have to make in order to help me. I hope they see in me the goodness of their decision."
Rodriguez said that "when I met Patrick and heard his story, I knew that I had to do all I could to help him."
He said one of the most moving moments for him was when Hardison went out to Macy's in New York after his surgery to buy clothes. “For him it was so remarkable that no one stared at him. ... It was a very emotional exchange for us,” Rodriguez said.