Ind. man approved for rare face transplant surgery

INDIANAPOLIS — An Indiana man has been approved for a rare facial transplant procedure a decade after he suffered horrible facial burns when he came in contact with a live wire while saving a friend.

Thirty-year-old Mitch Hunter was recently placed on a face transplant list at Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital. The hospital's transplantation director expects a donor will be found within the next few months.

Hunter tells The Indianapolis Star he hopes the surgery can restore some normalcy to his life and end the stares of strangers. He was 21 in 2001 when he pushed a live wire off of a friend after a car crash.

Hunter was jolted with 10,000 volts of electricity that horribly burned his face and cost him part of a leg and two fingers.