A 21-year-old suicide survivor has become the youngest person to receive a face transplant. Katie Stubblefield attempted suicide when she was 18, shooting herself in the face with the her brother’s hunting rifle. Katie is featured in an article “The Story of a Face,” in this month’s “National Geographic,” which details the emotional troubles that led to her March, 2014 suicide attempt.
As a result of the shooting, she lost parts of her forehead, nose and sinuses, her mouth, bones that make up the jaw and the front of her face, and her eyes were badly damaged. In 2017, after being on a waiting list for over a year, she underwent a face transplant at the Cleveland Clinic, the third done at the hospital and the 40th known in the world. Her procedure included transplantation of the scalp, the forehead, upper and lower eyelids, eye sockets, nose, upper cheeks, upper jaw and half of lower jaw, upper teeth, lower teeth, partial facial nerves, facial muscles, and skin.
Stubbenfield now has big plans for her future now. She wants to go to college and have a career in counseling and motivational speaking, in the hopes or raising awareness of suicide and suicide prevention. Source: CBS News
