Joe DiMeo suffered life changing injuries six years ago in a car crash, which occurred after he fell asleep at the wheel of his car, while driving home after a night shift in July 2018.
His Dodge Challenger hit a curb, flipped over and burst into flames during the crash and the man suffered his injuries before people could get to him and rescue him from the burning car.
He was left with serious burns over much of his body, but in August 2020 he survived a face and double hand transplant after 23 hours of surgery in New York where he had been given a slim chance of survival.
Joe said he was ‘ready for the transplant when it was offered to me’ as he ‘didn’t want to live how I was living’.
Joe DiMeo has found love since becoming the first person to successfully get a hands and face transplant, and it sounds like the wedding is soon. (Instagram/joeroydimeo)
Speaking about the car crash, Joe said: “My car veered off the side of the road, hit a curb, flipped a couple of times and then caught on fire.
“I had a mod that scraped the curb which created a spark and then the oil pan cracked in the impact and then they just created a flame.
“I was 80 percent burnt. They had to amputate my fingertips to the second knuckle and then they had to suture my eyelids because they were burned. It was like looking out of a chain link fence.”
He added that his recovery afterwards was ‘super difficult’ and for the first two weeks he couldn’t even move his fingers, instead hospital staff would have to move them for him to get the muscle memory working.
After the accident, he said he ‘lost a lot of fake friends’ but also learned who he could really count on, saying that ‘you realise who your real friends are and you appreciate them more’.
Joe and his fiancée Jessica first bonded over their love of dogs. (Instagram/joeroydimeo)
Joe knows that his donor was a 48-year-old stroke victim who had died two days before his surgery, and since then there have been some major milestones in his life.
He ended up being contacted over social media by a woman named Jessica Koby and they soon bonded over their love of dogs.
Things between the two of them appear to be going very well because they both recently posted news that they’d got engaged to one another, with Joe saying there were ‘big things going down on December 5th’, and Koby writing that ‘I guess I’m the right one Joe asked and I said yes’.
She also said she ‘can’t wait to get married‘, so it seems like it’s exciting times ahead for Joe and Jessica.
Featured Image Credit: Instagram/joeroydimeo
Topics: Health, US News, Sex and Relationships, Mental Health
A woman’s life was saved after her nagging husband tipped her off to something that she needed to get checked right away.
Lynn Hunt, from the UK, Initially thought she had just ‘bitten’ her tongue when two little white spots appeared on the side, but she would shortly find out that it was a life-threatening illness instead, thanks to her husband raising the alarm.
Lynn Hunt thought she bit her tongue (Kennedy News and Media)
The mother, who posted a TikTok video of her journey, shows viewers the reality of spotting the killer disease.
Hunt showed a range of pictures of before and after her surgery, showing the progression of a tumour.
According to her, the quick thinking of her husband led to her diagnosis of right lateral tongue squamous cell carcinoma.
She said in the caption: “Photos of the start of where I thought I had bitten my tongue to find out it was right lateral tingue squamous cell carcinoma and after surgery to remove and replace with radial forearm free flap & neck dissection and radiotherapy side effect ulcers.”
She uploaded a video of her journey (Kennedy News and Media)
Hunt’s journey with tongue cancer all began when she thought she’d bitten it a couple of times, having woken up to a sore and discoloured patch.
She began: “I thought I would come on and show you some pictures of where this all started so this is a picture that I took when I woke up one morning on March 14.
“I thought I bit in my tongue- in fact, it was a couple of days before this I thought I bit my tongue and I thought I’ll it go away- and then a couple of days later, I thought ‘that’s not going well, I must have bitten it again’.”
She said: “I was sat, I think in bed, you can see I got my dressing going on. I thought, ‘oh, I’ll just take a picture on my phone and have a look at it that way’.”
The image showed two little dots of white on the side of her tongue.
Then, the next image she showed was what looked like an ulcer in the same place, which she realised was cancer.
Her husband helped her seek help (Kennedy News and Media)
Hunt explained: “On April 18 it went from those two little white dots -which got bigger- and then it went into an ulcer.”
She mentioned the ulcer to her husband, who urged her to go to the doctor, and when she questioned him, he repeated that she needed to call them in the morning.
So, she went to the doctor’s office to raise the alarm and received a biopsy just weeks later.
On May 9, she took an image three days after the biopsy, showing her tongue with stitches sticking out.
This confirmed that she indeed had tongue cancer. On May 24, she had surgery to remove a section of her tongue and replace it with a portion of her forearm.
Thankfully, she managed to heal well, as she commented on the scar ‘fading’ as she showed viewers the difference between her forearm section and the rest of her tongue.
Featured Image Credit: Kennedy News Media
A man who has been drinking since it was legal for him to do so has documented what happened after he gave up the booze for 30 days.
YouTuber Evan, who runs The SAHD Life channel, wanted to see if he could go a month without a sip of alcohol, and the results seriously surprised him.
The content creator said he felt a number of benefits, recounting what it was like during his ‘fast’ and how he felt afterwards.
Evan gave up the booze for 30 days (YouTube/The SAHD Life)
Stable mood
The stay-at-home-dad said his mood became a lot more stable and he was a lot more patient with his children after four weeks.
“But my ability to cope and deal with stress is way greater than I would have ever guessed,” he explained.
“And instead of at the end of the day, looking forward to booze and having that as my reward, my brain is like releasing endorphins when I choose not to drink.
“It’s weird, feels good and all month I’ve been actually drinking tea. Me, drinking tea. Who am I?
“I like it, I like how I feel.”
The taste of alcohol changed
Evan said his social life has completely changed (Getty Stock Images)
When Evan drank again after his 30-day break, he said the taste was completely different.
“So we made it. I felt great, and to be honest, I was a little scared of breaking my fast so to speak,” he said.
“But we knew we kind of had to see what happens.
“So we celebrated by having two drinks, they tasted like crap and made my brain foggy.
“I couldn’t wait to sober up, interesting, right?”
Hanging out with friends more
When he was drinking regularly, the dad said he would avoid seeing friends because he didn’t have the energy.
But now, his approach to his social life has changed.
“A week went by and we didn’t even want to drink during the week, but on the Friday we were hanging out with our old drinking buddies,” he said.
“Only this time, my wife and I didn’t drink.
“And you know what? We still had fun hanging out with them.
“Not only that, we felt great in the morning and had energy to take the kids somewhere fun.”
Picking up new hobbies and having more energy
“Now all of a sudden it was mid-December, I was feeling good, I’m reading books, I’m learning and practicing mindfulness, I’m doing all kinds of things I always wanted to do, but would usually make excuses for,” he said.
“I am realising the more I take care of my body, the happier I am and the more energy I have.
“Hanging out with people is actually more fun for me now, when I have alcohol in my life I think I avoid people a bit.
“Now all of a sudden, I’m calling random people and wanting to engage face to face anytime throughout the day.”
Featured Image Credit: YouTube/The SAHD Life/Getty Stock Images
Topics: Alcohol, Food And Drink, Health, Lifestyle, Mental Health, Parenting
The man who claims to have had the ‘world’s first face and double hand transplant’ from a donor twice his age finds love five years later.
Joe DiMeo suffered a horror incident when his Dodge Challenger crashed and burst into flames in July 2018.
The now 24-year-old was left with third degree burns to 80 percent of his body and had his fingertips amputated.
He underwent 20 reconstructive plastic surgeries and spent 23 hours in August 2020 having the pioneering surgery.
SWNS
His new face was from a 48-year-old male stroke victim.
Five years later, Joe has found love with girlfriend Jessica Koby, 32, who got together after she sent him an Instagram message two years ago, when she read about his story.
Joe, from New Jersey, said: “It didn’t feel weird being given the face of someone nearly twice my age because I was just completely ready to start my life again.
“This is who I am now and I came to terms with that quite quickly really.
“When I was burnt I was not looking for love but I was always confident it would happen eventually because I am the same on the inside.
“Nothing has changed besides my skin.
“Now it’s really just amazing getting independence again.
“After surgery I was like at 0% – I couldn’t really do anything.
“Now I feel like I’m at 50%. I can cook, clean, do laundry and I can move my phone better.
“I didn’t really think I could motivate people until someone DM’d me saying ‘you saved me from suicide.'”
SWNS
Joe and Jessica’s relationship blossomed as they bonded over their shared love for Boston Terrier dogs – and they now share Buster, six, and Kirkland, seven.
Jessica, a nurse, said: “For everything he has gone through, he remains so positive and such a light.
“I love Joe inside and out because he is a funny guy, he knew what he wanted in life and was very mature for his age.”
Joe’s accident happened when he fell asleep at the wheel on his way home from a night shift working in a food testing laboratory in July 2018 in Hillside, New Jersey.
It took a team of 140 surgeons, nurses and support staff at NYU Langone hospital in New York City to pull off the pioneering surgery in August 2020 – which had only been attempted twice before.
SWNS
Joe added: “I’m 6”1’ and wide and then on top of that I wear short sleeves a lot of the time so you can see my burnt arms.
“So I don’t mind people staring because I would stare too.
“I could do a pity party but that’s just not me.
“I’m writing a book so I want to get that out, we’re looking at houses because our apartment is just too small for us right now, and I’d like to get my own car.
“I’ll be on medication for the rest of my life. I take like 15 pills a day.
“The main three just prevent my transplants from being rejected and the rest are just electrolytes that all the transplant meds take away.”
Featured Image Credit: SWNS
Topics: US News, Health, Sex and Relationships
A man has been forced to have a double lung transplant after his vape addiction left him hospitalised for months.
Jackson Allard, from North Dakota, was initially admitted to the University of Minnesota for stomach trouble in October 2023.
Once doctors ran some tests on him, they discovered that something far more serious was going on – he had influenza 4 and pneumonia.
The 22-year-old was intubated to give his lungs a chance to heal, but their condition was deteriorating.
It was ultimately decided that his best chance for survival was to have a double lung transplant.
Valley News Live
Allard’s grandmother, Doreen Hurlburt, spoke of how doctors broke the news: “At one point, a doctor said he had a 1 percent chance of living and we said, ‘He’s fighting, he’s fought for how many weeks we’re going to give him a chance to fight, we’re not going to stop any procedures or anything.’
“He’s just friendly, he’s outgoing, everybody’s just attracted to his energy and how much fun he is.
“I thought for sure we were going to lose him. I thought for sure he’s not going to survive this, but in my mind I kept picturing him coming home.”
According to Hurlburt, the family had already pushed for Allard to drop the habit.
She said: “You have to stop vaping, and we kept telling him that over and over and over again, and he was a heavy vaper. He vaped all the time, but he said, ‘It’s better than cigarettes.’
“Well they said, with cigarettes in 50 years you’ll have lung cancer, in five years, if you vape they will see you with permanent lung damage.”
In the aftermath of his operation, Allard will be staying in Minneapolis for at least six months to receive regular check-ups.
Currently, it looks like Allard will never be able to drink alcohol or smoke again in his life.
It’s also likely that he’ll need another transplant at some point in his life.
A GoFundMe has been launched by his grandmother, which has raised $20,910 towards the $30,000 goal.
Research by John Hopkins University found that thousands of chemical ingredients inside vapes have not been identified.
But among those that have, several were harmful substances, including a pesticide and flavourings linked to respiratory irritation.
A 2021 National Youth Tobacco Survey found that over two million American students use e-cigarettes, with eight in 10 opting for the flavoured variety.