THE recipient of the world's first face transplant may have suffered her injuries when her dog tried to rouse her after she had taken a suicidal drug overdose, it emerged yesterday.

The 38-year-old divorcee is said to have lost consciousness before the family labrador managed to wake her. It was later destroyed and the woman has since acquired a new dog.

[Blocked Ads]

Her 17-year-old daughter said: "We don't know what happened with the dog, whether it bit or clawed her, but it managed to pull her awake. In a way, it was lucky for her that the dog was there."

Yesterday, doctors gave more details about the revolutionary treatment used to transplant a section of nose, lips and chin from a brain-dead donor.

The transplant surgeon Jean-Michel Dubernard acknowledged that he had initial reservations in the planning stages of the surgery but said that when he saw the extent of the woman's disfigurement, he "no longer hesitated for a second".

He revealed that her first words after the 15-hour operation were "thank you" and that she had since been able to eat strawberries and chocolate.

Mr Dubernard also questioned the suicide story - first published in the French media - claiming that the woman had merely taken a pill to try to sleep after a family argument.

Regarding the surgery, he said that, in terms of matching the skin colour and texture of the donor and recipient, the results of the surgery "surpassed our hopes".

Bernard Devauchelle, another member of the surgical team, said the patient regained consciousness 24 hours after Sunday's pioneering operation. "The patient was awake at the 24th hour and, putting her finger on the tracheotomy tube, her first word was 'merci'," he said.

Video footage released by the hospital showed the woman, filmed from the back, sitting in a chair with knitting and needles on her lap as a doctor examined her injured face. The footage also showed her being wheeled out of surgery on a bed, her new lips, chin and nose in place.

The operation has set off a debate among scientists over ethics but also won praise as a groundbreaking, if risky, procedure.

Mr Dubernard said he knew the drugs used to prevent the body from rejecting the donated facial parts carried a slightly more elevated risk of cancer, and said the woman had been made aware of the risk.

Some critics have accused him of pressing ahead with the operation simply because he wanted to be the first in the field, but Mr Dubernard said he had realised that there might be criticism of the operation.

He led teams that performed a hand transplant in 1998 and the world's first double forearm transplant in January 2000. The hand transplant recipient later had it amputated - doctors said the man had failed to take the required drugs and that his body had rejected the hand.

"I lived through the story of a hand transplant - I know what is going to happen. We are going to be massacred by certain media," Mr Dubernard said.

Carine Camby, the director-general of the French agency that co-ordinates organ procurement, said the woman had been warned that she risked becoming the centre of media attention because the surgery was a world first.

Philippe Domy, the director of the hospital in Amiens, northern France, where the transplant was carried out said the surgery was required because the recipient's case was exceptional. "We are in an exceptional situation that required an exceptional response," he said.

Scotsman.com