Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Moment widow touches dead husband’s face after transplant
A TEARFUL widow strokes her dead husband’s face after it was transplanted on to another man.
Meeting Andy Sandness, for the first time, Lilly Ross was overcome as she tenderly touched his new skin.
“This makes me so proud,” she said. Mr Sandness, 32, had survived shooting himself in the face after trying to take his own life and was severely disfigured.
Since 2006 he had hidden away from the outside world, ashamed of his injuries that left him with a mouth a quarter its original size and a prosthetic nose that kept falling off.
Last year, Lilly’s husband Calen, 21, took his own life in Minnesota, shooting himself dead and leaving behind Lilly, who was pregnant.
Mr Sandness was on the waiting list for a face transplant and was connected with her not long afterwards.
And she gave permission for him to receive her late partner’s face.
Doctors found the two men were such a perfect match for the op that they could have been cousins. Last year Mr Sandness underwent a gruelling 56 hours of surgery and, 16 months later, he was able to thank Lilly in an emotional meeting at the non-profit Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Lilly said one reason to approve the transplant was that she wanted the couple’s unborn child to one day understand what his father had done to help others.
Since the transplant, Mr Sandness has been able to eat a pizza again and has even managed to win a promotion at work. “I wouldn’t go out in public,” he said. “And I hated going into bigger cities. And now I’m just really spreading my wings and doing the things I missed out on – going out to restaurants and eating, going dancing.”
As she touched the hairless gap in Andy’s chin, Lilly recalled: “That’s why Rudy always grew his beard long, so he could try to mesh it together on the chin.”
Afterwards, she added: “Meeting Andy has finally given me closure.”