Burns girl to have first face transplant
By Hugh Dougherty, Evening Standard
28 February 2003
The first person ever to receive a face transplant is likely to be a 16-year-old Irish girl who suffered horrific injuries as a baby when her father's car exploded into flames.

Lena Marie Murphy will have the surgery at the Royal Free Hospital in north London within months in an operation which will make medical history.

Once a board of ethics, headed by Falklands War veteran Simon Weston has given the go-ahead, Lena will receive the face of a dead donor, removing her own severely burned face.

The operation is likely to take place after the teenager has sat the Irish equivalent of her GCSE exams, and will end a race between British and American surgeons to be the first to perform the transplant, which was once the stuff of science fiction.

The surgery involves "degloving" the donor's face from a four-hour-old corpse, severing the top layer of skin and then grafting it onto the recipient's face.

It will be carried out by Peter Butler, a surgeon at the Royal Free, who has yet to meet Lena. He said she will undergo psychiatric and psychological assessment.