US veteran who comtemplated suicide after losing legs, genitals in explosion hails penis transplant as the 'best decision he ever made'
A veteran who lost his legs during an IED explosion in Afghanistan and later received the world's first penis transplant has now claimed it was the "best decision he ever made."
The US Navy corpsman in his mid-30s known only as Ray was tending to wounded soldiers who were ambushed by the Taliban when he accidentally stepped on a roadside bomb back in 2010, Newsweek reports.
Ray lost both his legs, genitals and a part of his abdominal wall in the explosion, after which he was forced to learn to walk on prosthetic legs. The life-changing injury had even made him contemplate suicide, the soldier revealed.
However, doctors in Baltimore gave Ray a new lease of life when they performed the world's first penis and scrotum transplant on him from a paralyzed donor.
The breakthrough procedure, which lasted over 14 hours, was the first of its kind to be carried out. Three other successful transplants had been carried out across the globe, but those did not involve attaching a new scrotum to the subject.
Ray explained he has almost regained full sensation in his new penis and is now able to hold an erection and urinate normally. "I don’t regret it. It was one of the best decisions I ever made," he told MIT Technology Review during an interview.
The decorated soldier also opened up about his traumatic experience in Afghanistan to the media, saying he "remembers everything."
"I remember thinking a quick thought: 'This isn’t good.' And then I was on my back," he said. "It was one of those injuries that really stresses you out and you think, 'Why would I keep going?' I guess I always just kept this real hope that there's an answer out there."
Ray met Dr. Richard Redett, a plastic surgeon at Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore, in 2013.
Redett concluded that Ray was an ideal candidate for a penile transplant, especially since his team leads a scheme that aims to give penis transplants to 60 permanently-injured soldiers.
"This was actually something that could fix me," Ray said. "I could go back to being normal again."
In March 2018, Ray was walking his dog when he received the life-changing news that a donor was available in another state.
The veteran sprung into action as medics boarded a chartered jet from Maryland to obtain the transplanted penis from the donor—a brain dead man—before placing the organ on ice to begin the 25-surgeon operation.
"We felt very confident we could do it, but we had never done it," said Dr. Redett. "If you're not anxious for something like that, you're not thinking hard enough."
During the procedure, surgeons had to stitch nerves, arteries, veins, and fine blood vessels from the transplanted penis to Ray's body.
While the donor's scrotum was also transferred, his testicles were removed to avoid the risk of the patient having his babies.
That said, Ray had to wait for two days after the surgery to see his brand new manhood for the first time.
"In the back of your mind, you know this is a transplant, and you wonder if it's going to be too much for you to handle. Once I went through with the surgery, all of those concerns just went away," he said.