US surgeons perform world's first whole eye transplant

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00:00 that the eye's alive and looks healthy.

00:02 It's pretty special.

00:03 Aaron James is for his surgeons a glimmer of hope against blindness.

00:08 Rather than shriveling like a raisin as doctors feared

00:11 his donated eyeball still looks healthy six months after his surgery.

00:16 Even if it doesn't provide him sight in that eye.

00:19 The first ever successful transplant of an entire eyeball

00:22 it was already part of a rare partial facial transplant.

00:25 In Aaron's success his surgeons at NYU Langone

00:29 hope to learn more about how the critical optic nerve heals

00:32 and how it communicates with the brain.

00:35 Already the blood flow and the sensation is a feat in itself.

00:39 It would be great if he can see but with that alone

00:42 this far, this far that we've come

00:45 most people didn't even expect we would get here.

00:48 The initial goal in surgeons sights

00:51 was simply for an eyeball to provide support for the facial transplant.

00:55 Now with this tour of technical force

00:57 there's possibly light at the end of the tunnel for something bigger.

01:01 To better understand how the nerves slowly grow and heal.

01:05 A victim of a high voltage power line accident two years ago

01:08 the 46-year-old lost his left arm and much of his face

01:12 including his nose and mouth.

01:14 You can see from his right blue eye

01:16 but the brown one he's now received gives a glimmer of hope.

01:19 To be a part of this, I mean that's just

01:23 that makes me feel like I could be helping you know the next person.

01:29 Doctors now are waiting to see if the ever-tricky optic nerve heals

01:33 and if it sends signals to the brain.

01:35 Even if it doesn't, James's wife says love remains in the eye of the beholder.

01:41 For it's still him inside.

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