Face transplant father tells of daughter’s joy

Dallas Wiens had most of his face burned off when his head hit a power line in 2008 while he was on a cherry picker painting a church.

In March a team of more than 30 medical experts spent 15 hours replacing his nose, lips, skin and nerves using an anonymous donor.

The 26-year-old said the most amazing moment since the transplant was when he was reunited with his young daughter who said: “Daddy, you’re so handsome”.

Wiens added: “To me the face feels natural. It feels as if it has become my own”

Before the transplant, he could not smell, had trouble breathing and underwent more than 20 operations in Dallas.

When the transplant brought back his sense of smell, Wiens said the first scent he encountered was hospital lasagne. It smelled delicious, he said.

Doctors, who were not able to restore Wiens sight, had said after the surgery that he would resemble neither his donor nor his old self.

“Every step of the way was amazing,” Wiens said. “It just felt like learning how to do everything over again but in a very real, very good way.”

‘Thank you from the bottom of my heart’

Dallas Wiens said that once home, he might attend college.

Over the next six to nine months he will be working to regain his facial muscle function and sensation in parts of his face, doctors said.

Surgical team leader Doctor Bohdan Pomahac said: “He was quite literally a man without a face. In addition to social issues inherent with living without a face, he was unable to smell and at times had difficulty breathing, requiring his tracheotomy.

“This face transplant will allow Dallas, who by all accounts is a devoted father, to more fully participate in his daughter Scarlette’s life. That’s a true gift.”

Wiens expressed immense gratitude to the donor family: “I would like to start by just saying that there are no words to truly describe the debt and gratitude or love that I possess for the donor’s family. The choices that they made have in a very great, in a very real way, changed my life and my daughter’s.

“And, so from the bottom of my heart, and from the bottom of hers, we thank you very much”