Dallas Wiens (born May 6, 1985) was an American man who was the recipient of the United States first full face transplant operation, performed at the Brigham and Women's Hospital during the week of March 14, 2011.
[citation needed] Wiens was burned by a high voltage wire on November 13, 2008, when he was painting Ridglea Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas.
[5][6] Transported by helicopter to Parkland Memorial Hospital, surgeons performed more than a dozen debridement procedures over approximately two months to remove the burned skin.
[7] Doctors told the family that Wiens would likely be paralyzed from the neck down and would never speak or produce enough saliva to eat solid food.
Wiens' sight could not be recovered in this surgery, so he was fitted with an acrylic ocular prosthesis, which sat over the skin protecting his right eye.
[8] The operation was paid for with the help of the US Department of Defense, which hopes to gain knowledge from the procedure to help soldiers suffering from facial injuries.