Woman meets man who received her dead brother's face after ground-breaking transplant

A woman has met the man who received the face of her dead brother in a groundbreaking transplant.

Rebekah Aversano saw - and touched - the transplanted face for the first time in an emotional meeting with Richard Norris, who was severely disfigured in a shooting accident.

Aversano's brother Joshua, 21, was run over and killed while crossing the street three years ago. His family, from Maryland, donated his face to Norris.

The Virginia man had undergone dozens of conventional operations to try to repair damage from the shooting accident in 1997, when he was 22. They had limited success, leaving him depressed and suicidal.

The Aversano family's donation gave him another chance. In one of the most complex face transplants in history, a team at the University of Maryland medical centre took 36 hours in March 2012 to transplant teeth, a jaw, tongue muscles and nerves.

Norris, now 39, thanked Rebekah in a meeting at his home in Virginia. Reaching out her hand, she asked: "Do you mind if I touch it?" After doing so she stepped back, astonished: "Wow, this is the face I grew up with."

Joshua's mother, Gwen, told Canada's CTV News network the family knew the donation was the right thing to do.