ANTALYA (AA) – Recep Kaya, a twenty-one year old from Kirklareli town of north-western Turkey, will finally be able to look at his new face in the mirror in 2014 after Turkey’s seventh face transplant operation that is due in the final days of the year.
Kaya has left his hometown Kirklareli for Akdeniz University Hospital in Antalya together with his aunt shortly after a phone call he received from face transplant specialists who have been looking for the right donor for him for some time.
“I am so happy because I will start the new year with a new face”, said over-the-moon Kaya who already went under about 40 operations since he blew up part of his own face in an accident while he was playing with his dad’s hunting rifle nine years ago.
Professor Omer Ozkan is expected to be the lead surgeon in Akdeniz University where four of six previous face transplantation surgeries were performed so far.
Recep Kaya had been invited for his long-waited operation by the university three months ago but the surgery could not be performed when he found out the skin color of the donor did not match his.
