she was the first American that were discounted more than ten years ago successfully, large parts of a face transplant. At the end of July Connie Culp at the age of 57 years died, such as the Cleveland clinic announced on Friday. In a Statement on Twitter said: “We are deeply dismayed. She was an Inspiration to all of us in the clinic.“ Further details at the time of death and the circumstances, the hospital did not initially.
The then-45-year-old Connie Culp was audited in 2008 during a 22-hour continuous Operation in the Cleveland clinic in Ohio, the face of a recently deceased woman, TRANS plan. It was the first intervention of this kind in the United States and only the fourth, and until then, probably the most extensive in the world.
Four years earlier, Culps had shot the former husband of her intention to kill in the face. He was later sentenced to seven years in prison. Culp survived, the bullet, however, destroyed her nose, cheeks, upper jaw and an eye. Unable to breathe you. at times just a hose that was passed through the trachea In more than 30 surgeries, the Doctors removed first, fragments of bone and bullet from Culps face. Later, they took parts of her Ribs and her femur to this new cheeks and to sculpt the jaw bone.
Alone to Breathe and to take solid food, could Culp have been replaced only after the transplant, in 80 percent of her face with bone, muscles, nerves, skin and blood vessels from the face of the organ donor. Since it was an experimental intervention, took over the clinic, the cost in the amount of several hundred thousand dollars.
Culp, a mother of two children, was in the following years, among other things, for victims of domestic violence, and disfiguration, as well as for organ donation strong. Her former husband, she has forgiven according to their own information. Of her sister Culp has not been described in Interviews as a person who can get to you, and with every Situation in a humorous handling of finds.
“Connie was an incredibly bold, vibrant woman, and an Inspiration to many,”said she, Frank Papay, head of the Institute for plastic surgery, the Cleveland clinic, after her death. “She was a great pioneer, and their decision is immune to this sometimes daunting procedure to a gift for humanity.”
