The man you can see above you is named Mitch Hunter and he suffered horrendous damage to his leg and face when the car he was driving crashed into an electrical pylon.

Images VIA 

Mitch heroically pushed the female passenger in the car to safety but the electricity from the pylon surged up his face, through his body and out of his face for five whole minutes before he was freed from the wreckage. Miraculously Mitch actually managed to survive the ordeal, but his face and leg were massively screwed up as a result of it.

Doctors managed to save his face, but he ended up looking like you can see him above. Mitch tried to go on with his life but when his girlfriend became pregnant he decided to seek out medical innovations as he couldn’t bare to see his child grow up having to look at his face face every day. Fair play to his girlfriend Katarina though for having sex with him looking like that.

Even though only two facial transplants had ever been performed in the United States and only ten worldwide, Mitch made the brave decision to go ahead with the surgery. A team of 30 doctors worked for 14 hours on his face, replacing his nose, eyelids, lips, muscles and the nerves. It took five months for the swelling to go down, but when it did Mitch looked this:

Looking pretty good, aside from that small amount of disfiguration around the eyes. Apparently the doctors are working on that though so it might be cleared up sooner rather than later too. Here’s what Mitch had to say about the operation:

Hot, cold, pain, tickle, rubbing my beard, someone kissing my face — I can feel everything. I think it’s an amazing journey. I mean, it’s been a hard journey.

I would like to tell people just not to worry about the small things; live life. Tell the people you love that you love them because you never know when that can be taken away

I feel just as healthy as I did when I was 21, and I feel great.

I look back on it as something that made me stronger.

I mean, yeah, I’d like to have my leg and my face back, but without that happening I wouldn’t be who I am today.

What a refreshing attitude. And how awesome that he actually looks pretty much normal now. If you always have a positive attitude and never give up hope, then things might just work out. Let’s hope it’s a similar story for that guy aiming to have the first human head transplant next year.