Man has chin and jaw reconstructed using leg after horrific accident on night out
A Brazilian man was left in a coma for 13 days after a traumatic injury on a night out, which saw his entire jaw reconstructed.
André Gayoso was heading home after clubbing in São Paulo when a thief on a bicycle stole his phone, which goes to show that that problem isn't just limited to London.
Furious, Andre set out to chase the man but ended up tripping and smashing his head and chin on a square metal bar.
He eventually woke up nearly two weeks later in the ICU with no memory of what had occurred, but was reminded thanks to the shocking pain in his mouth, which also meant he was unable to move.
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André, a business owner, said: “It was very hard. When I woke up it was very scary because I couldn’t talk because I’d lost part of my jaw and mouth and I couldn’t move.
“I’d been in the coma for 13 days so I’d lost all muscle mass. I lost around 20kg in 13 days.”
It wasn't just his body that was affected by the accident, which saw him break his bottom jaw and lose six of his teeth, as he was also hit hard by the financial impact of spending so long in hospital.
André added: “They wiped out my bank accounts, some crypto and my US bank account clean.
“It took me a month to get my stuff back in order. Honestly, I don’t see a light at the end of the tunnel, I imagine it.
“I have a purpose, that helps a lot. Also I am a very upbeat guy and I always look on the bright side, it’s the correct way to look at life.”
Surgeons ended up using skin from André's leg to help reconstruct his jaw, and he's now completed as many as 11 surgeries which have seen the skin grafted back onto his face, while he's also been fitted with prosthetic teeth.
Needing 7cm of bone replaced in his chin, doctors were forced to take from his right fibular bone in the 11-hour surgery.
André also had to have a tracheostomy fitted for 11 months to ensure that he could breathe properly during his surgeries, but he's not done yet.
He added: “My last surgery was December 2025 so far.
“Now I have more stuff to do like laser to take the hair out of my lip because the skin on my lip is skin from my leg from my fourth surgery.
“I need laser to destroy the follicles of hair that are in my lip.
“Now I’m waiting to do another session for micropigmentation to make my lip look red again and then have beard and hair implants.
“I lost a lot of hair as 11 surgeries is too much stress on my body.”
Despite doing serious damage to his face, the 36-year-old quickly realised that the sunglasses that he had designed and was wearing during the incident didn't even have a scratch on them.
“Then I understood they were not going to break almost at all – I later drove cars over them and they didn’t break,” André said.
He's now hoping to release some more sunglasses models later this year.
Topics: Health
James Moorhouse