A fiery crash left him with severe burns. Then, a 16-hour surgery at a Boston hospital gave him a new face.
Robert Chelsea, 68, of California, became the first black patient — and the oldest — to receive a full face transplant after undergoing surgery at Brigham and Women's Hospital.
Robert Chelsea was sitting in his broken-down car, its engine overheated, aside a highway outside of Los Angeles in August 2013 when a drunk driver slammed into the vehicle and took the life Chelsea once knew.
He lost his lips, part of his nose, and his left ear — all physical reminders of the burns that covered 60 percent of his body after his car burst into flames from the collision.
Even with over 30 surgeries, for the next six years, he used a syringe to drink and tilted his head back to eat.
But the now 68-year-old has undergone another significant transformation — this one for the better.
Chelsea received a full face transplant during a 16-hour surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in July, making him the first black patient and the oldest to ever undergo the procedure, the hospital announced Thursday.
“This experience has been an incredible journey for me, filled at times with many challenges,” Chelsea, who lives in California and returned home this week, said in a statement. “Today, however, I am thrilled to say that I’m on the road to recovery thanks to the incredible team of doctors and staff at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, the love and support of my family and friends, and my unwavering faith.”
The milestone case sheds a light on the longstanding racial inequities within the health care system, especially for facial and hand transplants, and the challenges black patients face when trying to find a match, experts say.
Chelsea waited a year-and-a-half to find a donor match — a longer wait than usual for the hospital’s other eight patients who have undergone the surgery, according to Brigham and Women’s. On average, patients wait four to six months.
Doctors worked with him to find a match that would closest resemble his own complexion and he would be comfortable with, according to a TIME magazine report. That factor can not only carry substantial weight in a face transplant patient’s recovery process psychologically, but can also limit the pool of donors.
Robert Chelsea before his face transplant surgery.
In 2007, another black patient in Paris was the first to receive a partial face transplant.
Chelsea declined the first face that was offered to him in the donor system, according to TIME. Its complexion was much fairer, and Chelsea feared the thought of becoming “a totally different looking person,” he told the magazine.
“It is vitally important for individuals of all races and ethnicities to consider organ donation, including the donation of external grafts, such as face and hands,” Alexandra Glazier, president and CEO of New England Donor Services, said in a statement. “Unlike internal organs, the skin tone of the donor may be important to finding a match.”
Chelsea’s donor came from an anonymous 62-year-old man who lived in another state, TIME reports. The man’s brother, noting his sibling’s generous spirit, made the decision after Chelsea’s future donor had died suddenly.
When he received the call about the availability, Chelsea had 24 hours to make a decision, the magazine reports.
He dreamt of sipping on drinks with ease once again, of being able to articulate his words fully again, and of being able to kiss his 29-year-old daughter, Ebony, on the cheek once more, he said.
“May God bless the donor and his family who chose to donate this precious gift and give me a second chance,” Chelsea said in a statement. “Words cannot describe how I feel. I am overwhelmed with gratitude and feel very blessed to receive such an amazing gift.”
According to Brigham and Women’s “over 45 physicians, nurses, anesthesiologists, residents, and research fellows” had a hand in the procedure led by Bohdan Pomahac, the Roberta and Stephen R. Weiner distinguished chair in surgery and director of plastic surgery transplantation at Brigham Health.
“Despite being the oldest face transplant patient at 68, Robert is progressing and recovering remarkably fast,” Pomahac said in a statement. “We are looking forward to seeing a significant improvement in Robert’s quality of life.”
Dr. Bohdan Pomahac, director of Plastic Surgery Transplantation at Brigham Health, left, with Robert Chelsea , the patient, after the transplant.
