Aaron James was on the job as an electrical lineman when his face touched a live wire and life as he knew it was gone in a flash of 7,200 volts.
Aaron James was on a job in Oklahoma fixing electrical lines when his face brushed against a live wire, unleashing 7,200 volts, which is enough to kill a man. The colossal current burned through his body like lightning.
He woke up six weeks later in a Dallas hospital with a hole where his left eye used to be and a nub where his nose should have been. His lips were missing, as was the lower half of his left arm. The massive current had burned his skin to the bone, leaving portions of his skeleton in full view.
When the U.S. Army veteran, who served three tours overseas, saw his ravaged face, he turned to his wife. "Look, if you want to leave, I get it," he told her.
Meagan James looked at her husband. "Nope, we're in it 'til the end," she replied.
Fast-forward to this month, more than two years after his accident. James is now the world's first recipient of an entire eye transplant. The left side of his face was also replaced, and his surgeons said his recovery has surpassed their highest hopes.
"Aaron is not a guy you're going to keep down. He's a fighter," said Dr. Eduardo Rodriguez, who led a team of 140 medical professionals that spent 21 hours across two hospital operating rooms, to transplant an eye and half a face from a 30-year-old male donor.
It was uncharted territory for the NYU Langone Health Center staff. At a recent news conference, Rodriguez said the transplanted eye was connected to James' optic nerve and remains healthy. His face has healed. It's not known if James will ever be able to see out of his eye, but that was never the point.
Rather, Rodriquez said, the eye transplant was an initial step into the medical unknown, the first time a whole eyeball was placed in a human. The surgery has given support to James' eye cavity, and enhanced the appearance of his newly constructed face.
"We've got an eye that's alive and an eye connected to the optic nerve, which is a direct connection to the brain," the surgeon said. Nerves grow very slowly and time will have to tell whether the new eye develops any sight.
Meahwhile, James is greatly pleased. He no longer flinches at his own reflection.
"Since the transplant, I tell people I can't walk past a mirror without looking at it," James told reporters.
"It has made me stand up taller."
His family, including his 18-year-old daughter, stand firmly at his side. James said they live in the here and now, not fretting about what comes next.
"You get through one day and thank God for the next," he said. "That's all you can do right now. I think I'm done worrying about too far in the future."
Rodriguez concurs. "As long as he takes care of that face, I think he will have a great life moving forward," the surgeon said.
