Jerome Hamon received a second face transplant in a medical first, a French surgeon said, and Hamon is now doing well and even spent a recent weekend in Brittany.
Dr. Laurent Lantieri of the Georges Pompidou hospital in Paris first transplanted a new face onto Hamon in 2010. But after getting ill in 2015, Hamon was given drugs that interfered with anti-rejection medicines he was taking for his face transplant.
Last November, complications led Lantieri to remove the transplanted face. That left Hamon without a face, in a condition Lantieri describes as "the walking dead."
In January, a second transplant was conducted. Lantieri said Hamon is now recovering well.
Doctors say, as with other organ transplants, it's not unexpected that some face transplants need to be replaced.