WASHINGTON - Tina Sambonia, the world's first hands-transplant patient, met Roberto Luis Montoya, the world's first face-transplant patient, at last night's annual National Institutes of Health fundraiser."We thought it would be a real hoot to have them meet, you know, from a scientific perspective," said Dr. Bradleys Roadhouse, who performed both transplant surgeries.
But the meeting did not go as planned. Unbeknownst to Dr. Roadhouse, the transplanted hands formerly belonged to the wife of the man who donated the face for the face transplant. That marriage ended unhappily because of the man's indiscretions. When the two transplant patients met last night, the hands-transplant patient involuntarily began slapping the face of the face-transplant patient. Security guards quickly separated the two as the fundraiser's guests watched in stunned silence.
"Through my work with the World Health Organization, I've encountered similar phenomena in Haiti," Dr. Roadhouse explained. "To the uninitiated, it can be a little off-putting." Dr. Roadhouse said that as a result of the incident, Mr. Montoya will require additional surgery. "Tina knocked his nose down to his Adam's apple," he chuckled. "I think it's fair to say there hasn't been this much slapping in Washington since the Clintons occupied the White House."
