Charlotte Ponce, of Michigan, had her ear, nose and part of her lip chewed off by a ferret in 2002, when she was just 3 months old.
At the time of this heartbreaking incident, the girl’s parents left her alone at home. The ferret – the family pet got out of the cage because the door didn’t close, crawled into the crib and attacked the baby. Charlotte’s uncles, Sharon and Tim only learned of the horrific attack when they watched the news that night. Soon after, they took custody of Charlotte and her brother Marshall.
Sharon, Tim and their friends have raised more than $10,000 to pay for Charlotte’s medical bills. Sharon even quit her job at the daycare center so she could spend all her time taking care of Charlotte.
She had her nose repaired in 2012. Dr Chiayasate, who repaired Charlotte’s nose, said: ‘When we first met Charlotte, she never showed any communication from words to words. eyes. But over the past two years, she has become more confident and has made many positive changes.”
Charlotte’s adoptive mother, Sharon Ponce, said: “The ferret has chewed most of Charlotte’s right face, it has also bitten off the entire right ear. Charlotte’s biggest dream now is to be able to do it. wear earrings”.
Charlotte has used prosthetics in the past, but it wasn’t an ideal solution because of entanglement and frequent infections. Therefore, the doctors decided to use autologous lung cartilage to create an ear lobe and implant it in Charlotte’s arm to make the artificial ear fully developed.
Baby Girl Has Ears “Growing” On Her Arm
Surgeons at Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Michigan took more than 7 hours to implant this artificial ear into its original position. Dr Kongkrit Chiayasate, who directly performed this transplant, said the surgery was very successful and Charlotte is recovering quickly in the intensive care unit.
