A plastic surgeon has given a severely disfigured former volunteer firefighter a new life after performing the "most extensive face transplant in history". Patrick Hardison's face was badly burned in 2001 when the roof of a burning building he had entered to search for a "missing" woman collapsed. The woman he had been looking for had, in fact, been fishing nearby.The face donor was 26-year-old New York artist and competitive cyclist David Rodebaugh, who died of injuries he suffered in a biking accident in Brooklyn. His mother gave permission to use his face, telling hospital staff that Rodebaugh had always wanted to be a firefighter.Dr Eduardo Rodriguez, who led the surgical team that performed the transplant at a New York hospital, said it is by far the most extensive performed successfully in terms of the amount of tissue transferred.Hardison had to undergo more than 70 surgeries before he finally underwent the full face transplant, which lasted 26 hours, in August.The transplant covered his skull and much of his neck but it left no scars on Hardison's new face because the seam of the transplanted tissue runs down the back of his skull.He explained how he had struggled to cope with his severe disfigurement and became reliant on painkillers. He was also "almost totally blind".He told New York magazine: "Kids ran screaming and crying when they saw me. There are things worse than dying."I thought for years that I would die the way I was after I got injured. I never thought I would be sitting here today after a face transplant."He is currently undergoing extensive physical therapy but hopes to be able to return home before the end of the year.Eventually, "a casual observer will not notice anything that is odd" in Hardison's new face, which will blend features of his original face and the donor's, according to Rodriguez.Rodriguez previously performed surgery on a gun injury victim who faced cruelty from strangers, fought addiction and contemplated suicide before receiving a face transplant...