Brigham and Women's Hospital's face transplant miracle could help soldiers

(CBS/AP) Yesterday, Dallas Wiens, a 25-year-old construction worker from Texas, became the first person to receive a full face transplant in the United States. But his miraculous operation, performed by a team of 30 doctors at Brigham and Women's Hospital, had a most unusual sponsor - the Department of Defense.

The agency had provided $3.4 million dollars to the hospital in the hopes that experimental techniques developed here could one day help soldiers who increasingly survive battlefield damage but are forced to live with devastating and disfiguring injuries.

"Eventually, we hope that this will move out of research and into the standard of care. We want to make sure our wounded warriors get covered," Col. Janet R. Harris, a registered nurse with the Army Corps of Nurses, told the Boston Herald.

Nearly 40,000 soldiers have been injured in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to the government, many of them seriously. The military estimates around 200 soldiers could currently benefit from face transplant surgery, according to Stars and Stripes, but there could be more as they are just beginning to search for candidates.

"We really want to help them," Dr. Bohdan Pomahac told the Boston Globe in 2009, shortly after performing a similar surgery. "They have given up their faces for our country."

Pomahac led the surgical team that worked on Wiens. He was also at the helm in April 2009, when the Boston hospital performed a partial face transplant on a man who suffered traumatic facial injuries from a freak accident. That surgery also received funding from the Department of Defense.

Each transplant surgery costs between $250,000 and $300,000, according to the Globe.

As for Wiens, his story began in 2008, when he suffered an electrical accident that left him blind and without lips, a nose or eyebrows. Pomahac and his team transplanted an entire new face, including a nose, lips, skin and muscles and nerves that animate the skin and give sensation.

He is said to be in good condition, although, due to swelling, it will be a while before his new face can be revealed. The donor's identity was not disclosed.