'Boston Med': Face Transplant Surgery

Aug. 12, 2010— -- Jim Maki doesn't remember falling off a Boston subway platform -- but in that instant his face, and life as he knew it, was gone.

Four years later, Maki would get an astonishing second chance. He would receive another man's features thanks to a groundbreaking face transplant surgery and one woman's generosity to honor the man she loved.

But the procedure came with enormous risks. At the time, Maki would become only the second person ever to receive a face transplant in the U.S., so the surgical team would be heading into uncharted waters.

Watch the exclusive behind-the-scenes of Maki's face transplant on "Boston Med" tonight at 10 p.m.

Burn center director Dr. Bohdan "Bo" Pomahac was on call on June 30, 2005, when Maki was admitted to the intensive care unit of Brigham and Woman's Hospital. Maki had accidentally fallen face first onto an electrified subway rail.

"The tissues basically got vaporized. It was literally like how you would create a crater in the middle of the face," Pomahac said.

Maki suffered third-degree burns and had lost his nose, cheeks, teeth, part of his mouth, muscle, bone and nerves, in addition to damaging his arm and one of his eyes. In all his years as a plastic surgeon, Pomahac never had seen a facial injury so severe. He knew the lost tissues were irreplaceable, so "patients like him are doomed."

"It was difficult for him to speak, eat or drink," Pomahac said. "I don't think that any one of us can quite imagine what it is like living without a face. ... If you're horribly disfigured, and you can't really express yourself when you speak, it's a bad combination. You are just at the mercy of people and their judgment."

Unable to endure the stares, insults and, sometimes, physical assaults, Maki became recluse, preferring to stay in his home outside of Boston.

"I've had young kids come up to me and ask if I was real," Maki recalled. "It was uncomfortable. ... They usually stay away from me."

Over the years, Pomahac performed multiple procedures on Maki's face, but felt helpless that he couldn't do more. So after several extensive medical and psychological evaluations, Maki became listed as a face transplant candidate in February 2009. Now, all that was needed was a donor.