'Your gift will not be wasted': face transplant patient meets donor's widow

American clinic organised meeting between Calen Ross's widow and Andy Sandness, who endured nearly 10 years of severe facial disfigurement

It made for an emotional meeting. More than a year after Andy Sandness had a groundbreaking face transplant at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, he met the widow of the dead man whose face it used to be.

Andy Sandness, 32, from Wyoming, had 56 hours of surgery last summer to have the face of Calen "Rudy" Ross transplanted, in the first such operation the clinic had performed. The recent meeting, arranged by the clinic, brought Sandness and the donor's widow, Lucy Ross, together for the first time.