A year after undergoing the first whole-eye and partial-face transplant, Aaron James is finding beauty in the mundane.
He can finally appreciate solid foods again — smelling is even a simple pleasure — and he doesn’t shudder when he looks in the mirror. And while most people loathe the DMV, James happily replaced his driver’s license that bore his gruesome injuries to show off his miraculous transformation.
“I’ve been given the gift of a second chance, and I don’t take a single moment for granted,” James, 47, reflected in a statement to The Post.
The utility line worker from Arkansas lost his left eye, left eyelid, nose, lips and a large amount of facial tissue when his face grazed a 7,200-volt live wire in a horrific 2021 work accident.
An Army National Guard veteran, James woke up in a hospital six weeks later with an empty socket where his left eye had been, a nub for a nose and a hole that barely resembled a mouth.
Doctors amputated his left arm above the elbow, fitted him with a prosthetic and taught him how to walk again.
Then in May 2023, surgeons at NYU Langone Health made history when they replaced James’ left eye and half his face, which he received from a donor in his 30s who had been declared brain dead.
A study published Monday in the Journal of the American Medical Association reveals how James is faring after the 21-hour groundbreaking operation, which is the first human whole-eye transplant and the only successful combined transplant of its kind.
“The outcomes we’re seeing after this procedure are quite incredible and could pave the way for new clinical protocols and inspire further research into complex transplants involving critical sensory organs,” said Dr. Vaidehi S. Dedania, James’ ophthalmologist and retina specialist in the Department of Ophthalmology at NYU Langone.
Not all of the news is good — James still cannot see out of the transplanted eye, and the surgical team reports that damage to the optic nerve during recovery has resulted in some loss of retinal tissue.
But the eye has maintained normal pressure and good blood flow. Tests also show that the rods and cones — photoreceptors in the retina that are responsible for sight — survived the transplant.
There’s hope that future whole-eye transplants can restore sight.
“We’ve done the work to transplant an eye. We now need to do more work in understanding how to restore sight to the eye,” said Dr. Eduardo D. Rodriguez, who led the 140-person team that collaborated on James’ procedure.
“Our discoveries over the past year mark promising initial results, laying a foundation for further advancements and ongoing research,” added Rodriguez, director of the NYU Langone Face Transplant Program. “We are truly amazed by Aaron’s recovery.”
James feels honored to be “patient zero.”
“Even if I can’t see out of my new eye, I’ve gained my quality of life back, and I know this is a step forward in the path to help future patients,” he said.
Now he and his wife of nearly 21 years, Meagan, are preparing for another milestone — sending their daughter, Allie, to college.
“I’m pretty much back to being a normal guy, doing normal things,” James joyfully admitted.
