A WOMAN suffering from a flesh-eating bug has been given the miracle of a new face from a donor who underwent an assisted dying procedure.
The recipient – a Spanish woman only identified only by her first name Carme – had endured facial tissue necrosis from a bacterial infection caused by an insect bite in the Canary Islands.
Her condition was life threatening and had severely affected her ability to speak, eat and see.
“They put me into a coma and I was in three different emergency units,” Carme explained on Monday at a press conference to reveal the pioneering operation.
“The necrosis had eaten away at my face. I couldn’t eat because my mouth wouldn’t open and half my nose was missing.”
In a world first, the donor had offered her face for donation before undergoing the assisted dying procedure.
Spain’s Vall d’Hebron Hospital’s transplant coordinator, Elisabeth Navas, said the donor had showed “a level of maturity that leaves one speechless”.
“Someone who has decided to end their life dedicates one of their last wishes to a stranger and gives them a second chance of this magnitude,” Navas said.
About 100 health professionals assisted the groundbreaking surgery, including specialists in plastic surgery, transplantation, immunology, psychiatry and intensive care, to transplant the donor face onto Carme in autumn 2025.
For such cases requiring facial transplants, donor and recipient must share the same sex, blood group and have a similar head size.
Surgeons were able to match the donor’s features to Carme’s and carry out detailed three-dimensional planning in advance because unlike in most cases, the death of the donor was planned in advance.
Dr. Joan-Pere Barret, head of the Plastic Surgery and Burns Service at the Vall d’Hebron Hospital, explained the team didn’t want the transplant to be “nothing more than a mask”.
They worked hard to ensure it could experience touch and move like a face should.
“We are talking about structures with all types of tissues, with muscles and nerves, some with diameters of 0.2millimetres, which must be found and connected,” he said.
He recalled an interview with the donor three weeks before the procedure in which she only wanted to know if her face was a viable option for Carme.
She smiled throughout and, despite the limitations of her illness, expressed her happiness at being able to help,” the surgeon said.
Carme’s recovery is going very well and she said she “imagines and thanks” her anonymous donor.
“When I’m looking in the mirror at home, I’m thinking that I’m starting to look more like myself,” Carme said.
“I can talk, I’m starting to eat, I have sensitivity in the transplanted area, I can drink, have a coffee.
“I don’t mind going out into the street and I can live a normal life. In a year, I think I’ll be completely fine, fantastic.”
With a population of 49.4million, Spain has been a global leader in organ transplants for more than three decades.
In 2021, it became the fourth European Union country to legalise euthanasia.
Half of the six facial transplants ever done in Spain have been performed by Vall d’Hebron staff.
The Catalan hospital also carried out the world’s first full face transplant back in 2010.
Some 6,300 organ transplants were performed last year in Spain, according to Health Ministry data, with kidney transplants being the most common.
In 2024, 426 people received assistance in dying, government data shows.
