The joy in Rebekah Aversano's countenance could not be denied when she stared at the face of her dead brother living in a different man's body.
"Wow," she said to the man who now wears her brother's face. "This is the face I grew up with," the New York Daily News reports.
Aversano visited the house of Richard Norris, who was the recipient of her brother Joshua's face in a transplant in 2012. Her brother lost his life three years ago when he was hit by a van, and his family decided to donate his face to Norris.
"We just felt that this is something he (Joshua) would want to do, that out of this tragedy, something good could happen," Aversano's father Randy said, according to People. "It was Richard's only hope."
"I know I did tell Randy at the time, if I ever saw someone walking around who had Joshua's face, the first thing I would do is walk up and give him a big hug," their mother Gwen said.
It was a tough decision for the family, but they were convinced it was the right thing to do. They donated Joshua's face to Norris, who suffered from severe facial disfiguration for 15 years after accidentally shooting himself in the face in 1997.
Because of the accident, Norris lost his teeth, his nose and a part of his tongue. He was 22 years old when it happened. He went through multiple surgeries until a doctor informed him that only a face transplant could help him get his life back, and even then his chance of survival was just 50 percent.
Norris was given that opportunity when the Aversano family donated Joshua's face in 2012. The procedure took 36 hours. It was the most extensive transplant procedure during that time because it involved a lot of facial tissue.
The successful operation became the 23rd face transplant in history.
"We can definitely see our son in him. We can see the similarities very much so," said Gwen, according to the Daily News.
