Richard Norris, 39, was left badly disfigured after he accidentally shot himself in the face in 1997.
In the years following, he underwent more than 30 operations to correct some of the damage but saw little improvement.
Then, three years ago, 21-year-old Joshua Aversano died in a car accident and out of that tragedy came hope.
Thanks to transplant surgery, Joshua’s face was grafted onto Richard’s body.
The moment where Joshua’s sister Rebekah sees ‘the face she grew up with’ is really something.
In footage that will be broadcast on 60 Minutes this Sunday, a stunned Rebekah asks Richard if ‘she can touch it [his face]?’ and backs away in disbelief when she does.
Rebekah’s mother Gwen told CTV News that donating Joshua’s face to Richard was ‘the right thing to do’.
‘We can definitely see our son in him,’ she said.
‘We are just so pleased to have been able to help him, even though we had such a tragic loss, we were able to give someone else the benefit of our son.’
Richard underwent 36 hours of surgery at the Maryland Medical Centre for the transplant in an operation that was considered controversial because Richard only had a 50 percent chance of survival.
Though the surgery was successful, The road ahead isn’t easy for Mr. Norris. For the rest of his life, he will have to take a number of drugs to suppress his immune system, which will continually treat the face as a foreign object and try to reject it.
Drinking, smoking and serious injury to the body also increase the likelihood of rejection, and an incident where he was sunburnt already triggered a severe rejection episode, from which he took weeks to recover.
Nevertheless, his life has vastly improved since the operation. He is no longer afraid to leave the house, and no longer faces cruelty from strangers. He said he was humbled by the donation and regularly keeps the Aversono family updated on his health and happiness.
