Video: A New Face

This week in the magazine, Raffi Khatchadourian tells the story of Dallas Wiens, a young Texan who is the recipient of the world’s first full face transplant. Four years ago, Wiens, riding in a boom lift as he painted the roof of a church in Fort Worth, hit a high-voltage wire and was electrocuted. When a doctor at Parkland Hospital examined Wiens, “he was shocked. People with that type of physical trauma rarely became patients. Usually, they died.”

In this video, Wiens’s grandmother, Sue Peterson, describes the range of physical and emotional changes she’s seen throughout his recovery process.