First Black patient to receive face transplant advocates for more donors, raise awareness
MIAMI - Robert Chelsea was just a normal guy who enjoyed the simple pleasures in life like bowling, dancing, and other activities. In 2013, all of that changed after an accident.
While driving in Los Angeles, Chelsea's car overheated so he pulled over on the shoulder of the 605. However, while waiting for help, he was hit by a drunk driver. That driver, he says, had three previous DUI convictions. The impact from the crash was so great Chelsea's car exploded and he was left with lasting injuries.
"A mangled face, my lips were burned off [and] part of my tongue," he told CBS News Miami while in South Florida for an additional surgery.
Chelsea was in a coma for six months and in the hospital for a year and a half. Burns covered his body, and the damage was so vast that he needed more than 30 surgeries to repair his wounds.
In 2019 at the age 68, Chelsea made history becoming the first and oldest Black patient to receive a face transplant. Almost five years later, Chelsea is part of a new documentary, and a South Florida surgeon will be conducting his latest surgery as part of it. The goal is education.
"There's too many people that've been burned and mangled," said Chelsea.
He says Black facial transplants are a rarity in the Black community, so he wants doctors to enter the field and learn about it. He also wants more people to become donors.
Still, he grapples with the massive changes he now lives with.
"What I see in the mirror is another man's face. My daughter sees another man's face," he said.
Yet still, his faith in God remains strong.
"It was still an accident and not only that, if God wanted to, he certainly could've allowed the car to swerve around me and not hit me at all," said Chelsea.
The documentary is still in the early stages, and a release date has not yet been disclosed.