Man Reunites with Daughter After Full Face Transplant

ABC News(NEW YORK) -- Six weeks after receiving the first full face transplant in the United States, Dallas Wiens, a 25-year-old construction worker from Fort Worth, Texas, gave ABC's Good Morning America the first look at his new face.

Wiens, who suffered life-threatening burns to his head when the boom lift he was operating drifted into a nearby power line two and a half years ago, was also reunited with his 3-year-old daughter Scarlett -- the reason he signed on for the transplant.

"I could have lived like I was, no problem, if I did not have my daughter," Wiens said in an interview on ABC's Good Morning America. "But I could not bear the thought of her growing up and being asked questions, 'Why does your daddy look different?' And dealing with that all of her childhood."

After an emotional reunion, Scarlett said her dad's new face is "nice."

The horrific accident and the 22 surgeries that followed left Wiens with a face void of features short of a lipless mouth and a small goatee. Even his eye sockets were smoothed over with skin taken from other parts of his body.

But in March, a team of more than 30 doctors, nurses and anesthesiologists at Brigham and Woman's Hospital in Boston worked for more than 15 hours to give Wiens a new face -- complete with skin and the muscles and nerves needed to animate it.

Dr. Bohdan Pomahac, director of the Brigham and Woman's Hospital Burn Center and the leader of the surgical team that gave Wiens his new face, described Wien's transformation as "unreal."

Wiens is the second person to have a face transplant at Brigham and Woman's Hospital.

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