Facial injuries devastate patients
Homeless victim of vicious assault will face grim news, long treatment BACKGROUND
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Sometime soon, a physician is likely to sit at the bedside of Ronald Poppo and explain to the homeless Miami man what much of the world already knows — that his face is gone and he will never again look the way he thinks he does.
Yet even as the 65-year- old learns what happened to him two weeks ago when a deranged stranger gouged out one of his eyes and chewed off his forehead, nose, an eyelid and his lips, Poppo may struggle to grasp the implications of the attack, experts say.
“What they all say is, ‘I’ve become a monster,’” said Daniel Alam, a plastic surgeon at Cleveland Clinic who helped transplant a face onto a Connecticut woman mauled by a pet chimpanzee in 2009. “Because without a face, others cannot see them as human. The world cannot relate to them ever again. That’s where depression comes in. And he will be a victim of that .”
Poppo is likely several weeks from a full understand-
“In that initial
conversation, I let them know this is a horribly disfiguring
injury, but luckily you’re alive. And I let them know they have
a long road ahead — surgery for years, 20
to 30 operations.”
ing of what has happened, say doctors. Although none of the physicians surveyed are involved in Poppo’s care, they have all dealt with similar cases.
“In that initial conversation, I let them know this is a horribly disfiguring injury, but luckily you’re alive,” said Eduardo Rodriguez, an expert in facial reconstruction and chief of plastic surgery at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore. “And I let them know they Rudy Eugene have a long road ahead — surgery for years, 20 to 30 operations.”
Rodriguez, who has offered to consult in this case, said Poppo is not a likely candidate for a facial transplant. “We’re hoping this guy can go back to his normal life, or his homeless life,” said Rodriguez. “If he can eat OK, preserve the vision in one eye…”
From what he has seen from photos and heard from other physicians, Rodriguez said Poppo’s injuries are among the worst he has heard of.
In cases such as these, he said, “it is impossible to make them look normal. It is more important to give them a sense of hope.”
The cost of rehabilitating Poppo, who has lived on the street for at least 30 years, will be enormous. Blane Shatkin, a plastic surgeon at Memorial Hospital Pembroke, said surgical fees and hospital charges at the end of a year could total $1 million. “It’s a big price tag,” he said.
Ronald Poppo was attacked May 26 by a naked Rudy Eugene, 31, who pummeled him on the MacArthur Causeway and then spent 20 minutes gnawing on the helpless man’s face.
Eugene, a former Hollywood, Fla., resident, was stopped only when a Miami police officer shot him dead.
Poppo also may need many hours of psychological counseling or other medical treatment to deal with addiction or substance abuse. Who will pay? Taxpayers. “The fact is, a civil society has a certain moral obligations to its citizens,” said Kenneth Goodman, director of the Bioethics Program at the University of Miami’s Miller School of Medicine. “What that means is that in Miami-Dade County, you try to give same level of care to indigents as to anyone else.”
Poppo does have relatives. A 44-year- old New Jersey woman, Janice Poppo Dibello, told reporters she last saw her father when she was 2. An ex-wife and two siblings have also surfaced, but it is unknown if they will be involved in his recovery.