What Happened to Connie Culp, the First Woman in the U.S. to Receive Face Transplant?

Folks wanna know what happened to the first woman in the U.S. to have a face transplant, Connie Culp. Connie had the procedure in 2008 at the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio. Her face was severely disfigured following a domestic incident, and she later had reconstructive surgery. Connie died back in 2020, and Dr. Frank Papay, who was part of her surgical team and chair of the Cleveland Clinic’s Dermatology and Plastic Surgery Institute, released a statement after her death.

Dr. Papay called Connie “an incredibly brave, vibrant woman and an inspiration to many,” per the Associated Press.

"Her strength was evident in the fact that she had been the longest-living face transplant patient to date,” he continued. "She was a great pioneer, and her decision to undergo a sometimes-daunting procedure is an enduring gift for all of humanity."

So, what happened to Connie?

Connie was disfigured in 2004 after she was shot in the face by her husband following a botched murder-suicide attempt in Hopedale, Ohio. Despite the shot destroying her nose, shattering both of her cheeks, and taking much of her sight, Connie's husband only served seven years in prison. According to The New York Post, Connie's then-husband, Thomas, used a shotgun to shoot her, and Connie's children were scared of her face and would run away from her following the shooting.

Thirty operations were performed on Connie as doctors used part of her ribs to make new cheekbones. The surgeons also used one of her leg bones to give her an upper jaw. Connie also suffered through multiple skin grafts and was unable to eat solid food. She was also unable to smell and breathe on her own.

Her ex-husband was convicted of aggravated attempted murder, and Connie was going to wait for him to finish his sentence and take him back. However, her daughter changed her mind after she said it set a bad example.

In 2008, a team of physicians led by Dr. Maria Siemionow performed the 22-hour operation to replace 80 percent of Connie's face with donor bone, muscles, nerves, skin, and blood vessels. The facial transplant was the fourth performed in the world at the time.

Surgeons also had to remove hundreds of fragments of shotgun pellets from Connie's face. Her donor was a woman named Anna Kasper, and Connie thanked her family following the procedure.

"I guess I’m the one you came to see today,” she said during the press conference after her operation. "I think it’s more important that you focus on the donor family that made it so I could have this person’s face."

She also said that some of her senses had returned. "I can smell now. I can eat steak. I can eat almost any solid foods – so it’s all getting better."

Connie died in 2020 from an undisclosed infection that was reportedly not related to her facial transplant, per CNN. She was just 57 years old.