New face for chimp-attack victim
Surgeons at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital have performed face transplant surgery on Charla Nash, the Connecticut woman who suffered horrific injuries when she was mauled by a pet chimpanzee in 2009. Nash also received a double hand transplant, but the grafts failed after she developed pneumonia, which lowered her blood pressure and blood flow into the transplanted hands, doctors said Friday (June 10) during a news conference announcing the surgery. The 20-hour procedure was the third full face transplant performed this year by a team led by Bohdan Pomahac, an assistant professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School and director of the Brigham’s plastic surgery transplant program. During a sometimes-emotional news conference, Pomahac described the surgery, while Nash’s brother Steve thanked the surgical team and personnel at other hospitals who saved her life and stabilized her. He also thanked the donor family, whose members wish to remain anonymous, calling them “generous and...