when i would visit these brave men and women that served our country and lost their limbs all because they were defending our liberty and our freedoms and our way of life, i just developed aa passion for the science and the medicine behind this. this is not about republican democrat, liberal, conservative. this is about humanity, saving livesand the incredible miraculous transformation of life that takes place. i saw that firsthand at walter reed. i saw that firsthand and bethesda. now i m at nyu where they were able to pull up the first transplant, face transplant of a fire fighter that had been severely injured. and then, after a terrible terrible accident, a young man not only got a face transplant but a double hand transplant right in an operating room like this. the science behind it, the medicine behind it, the level of sophistication and detail and intricacy is beyond anything that you would ever imagine. now we re going to walk you e through the miracles of modern w
to have other people, to be dependent on them? yes, because i moved out at 18, had my own place and to have to move back in with my parents it s, you know, very hard, and plus i m very independent. sean: two operations a i week for about four months. they said he s going to have to slow down, his body won t be able to take it. and they never did, he never did. he took all the operations. he recovered. you know, they said it was amazing. i have a colleague who works in new jersey, he s a plastic surgeon and he called me to let me know about a patient that he had been taking care of. he had had numerous operations probably over 20, of his face and his hands, and they began to entertain the possibility of a face transplant, or hand transplant. sean: dr. rodriguez visited sean: dr. rodriguez visited accident with him, and with his family. so the car s rolled over here. the guy jumps over and then. where did they pull you out? did they drag you?
sean: the only option to restore joe s quality of life was to consider a face and double hand transplant, something that had never been successfully done anywhere in the world. there had been other attempts did not work. correct. the other two face and hands the first in paris, face and double hand, the patient died in thes, hospital from complicatios infectious complications and there are a number of different reasons why that happened. the second patient was done in boston, the face survived but the hands failed. and when you look at our patients, it s almost like a lunar launch. you know, we don t we can try, but ultimately in these patients, we have one shot. so we have to think about everything carefully. sean: when you first heard about you would be the first w person in history to get a face and double hand transplant, i don t know if i m trying to put myself in your shoes, i can t. i i would be thinking huh?
medicine, the first ever successful face and double hand transplant in the history of this country. and you re going to meet the great dr. eddie rodriguez, the guy responsible, along with a team of 140 people here at nyu come join me for this journey it s not political, it s science, this is about medicinet this is about transforming lives. \m\m most people, our faces, well they re our identity. think about someone you know what is the first thing you picture in your mind s eye? right? it s their face. now, imagine one day you wake up after a horrific accident and suddenly you don t have the face you ve had your entire life.
dr. rodriguez was not done pushing the envelope. now his most recent ground-breaking achievement was performing a successful full-face and double hand transplant, the first ever successfully in the world on a brave young man who i ll introduce to you later on. but dr. rodriguez, he didn t even start his career as a doctor at all. the son of cuban immigrants, he first trained to be a dentist. to be honest, i went to dental school because i wasn t accepted into medical school. sean: but a mentor pushed him to try again. most of us when we either consider that we fail or something or are not accepted to something, the last thing we want to do is revisit that. but he pushed me to go on to medical school and i went to virginia for medical school. the more i learned about medicine and the more i became