The world’s first patient with a full eye and partial face transplant reports one year after the operation

A year after his first full eye and partial face transplant, Aaron James finds beauty in the everyday.

He can finally eat solid food again—even smelling is a simple pleasure—and he doesn't cringe when he looks in the mirror. And while most people loathe the DMV, James was happy to replace his driver's license, which showed his gruesome injuries, to show off his miraculous transformation.

“I have been given a second chance and I don't take a single moment for granted,” James, 47, said in a statement to the Washington Post.

The Arkansas power line worker 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 workplace accident in 2021.

James, an Army National Guard veteran, woke up in a hospital six weeks later with an empty socket where his left eye had been, a stubby nose, and a hole that barely resembled a mouth.

Doctors amputated his left arm above the elbow, fitted him with a prosthesis and taught him to walk again.

In May 2023, surgeons at NYU Langone Health made history when they replaced James' left eye and half of 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 shows how James is doing after the 21-hour groundbreaking surgery, which was the first full-eye transplant in humans and the only successful combined transplant of its kind.

“The results we are seeing after this procedure are quite incredible and could pave the way for new clinical protocols and stimulate further research into complex transplants of important sensory organs,” said Dr. Vaidehi S. Dedania, James' ophthalmologist and retina specialist in the Department of Ophthalmology at NYU Langone.

However, the news is not all good: James still cannot see with the transplanted eye and the surgical team reports that during recovery there was damage to the optic nerve, which has led to 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 responsible for vision – have survived the transplant.

There is hope that future full-eye transplants may restore vision.

“We've done the work on eye transplantation. Now we need to do even more work to figure out how to restore vision to the eye,” said Dr. Eduardo D. Rodriguez, who led the 140-person team that performed James' procedure.

“Our discoveries over the past year are promising initial results and lay the foundation for further advances 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 though I can't see with my new eye, I have regained my quality of life and I know this is a step forward in helping future patients,” he said.

Now he and his wife, Meagan, whom they have been married to for nearly 21 years, 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 admitted happily.