Speaking with a Dead Man's Voice | Extraordinary Human Beings | Only Human

Hollidaysburg Pennsylvania population just over 5,000 and the place former firefighter Tim Heidler has always called home for most of his adult life tim has sounded like this Tim lost his larynx in a terrible accident and was forced to use a voice box called an electrolarynx 2/m spoke normally until 1978 when a brutal incident robbed him of his voice [Music] riding to a fire training seminar he takes an old logging trail he has no way of knowing that someone has maliciously sprung a cable across the road to stop bikers dead Tim barely survived the accident he eventually recovered from his injuries but his larynx had been crushed by the cable and was irreparable it seemed his voice was lost forever for 20 frustrating years Tim's only option was to speak through the electronic voice box he continued to search for a better solution until a 1998 news story led him to dr. Marshalls strong a larynx specialist at the Cleveland Clinic foundation for years dr. Strome had been working to perfect a human larynx transplant something that had never been accomplished he was finally ready for his first patient and Tim Heidler was a perfect candidate I thought I'd never find a candidate because I we four of us sat down with him said look you could die with this operation why do you want to do it people are going to say you know you're you're talking with an electrolarynx your life is good why do you want to do this operation I also told them that if you look at the history of transplantation where immunosuppression had been used no organ had really survived long-term and why should I think that this one would potentially be different I was hoping it would be different because I'd done years of research suggesting that we could get them to last a long time could I guarantee it no in transplant surgery the biggest danger is the donor organ itself the recipients immune system naturally attacks it as a foreign invader to sidestep the body's natural defenses doctors use drugs to suppress the recipients immune system this can cause even the smallest infection to become fatal for Tim it was worth the risk with the doctor and patient in place a non diseased larynx must now be located and harvested from a corpse in an extremely delicate operation of the donor larynx as well as other throat tissue will replace what Tim lost in 1978 even so there is no guarantee that it will function once he recovers the search for the ideal donor takes months we've been screening for approximately six months and had passed on a lot of donors because I didn't think they were perfect then on January 3rd 1998 40 year-old Matt Douglas dies unexpectedly from an aneurysm for his family the tragedy of Matt's sudden death is mitigated by the fact that he is a perfect donor for the transplant doctors mobilize the next day at 8 a.m. they begin the groundbreaking process of trying to restore Tim's voice there were a lot of pitfalls in this surgery that as many times as you do it on animals there were challenges that we didn't have the answer for for example in order to put the larynx in you have to set it in the throat well how much muscle of that throat can you actually set in and expect it to swallow if you make it too tight then the suture line could potentially break down leak and become infected and in the face of immunosuppression the potential was there for that infection to be overwhelming for the first eight hours dr. Stromm and his team performed the delicate surgery the procedure requires an extra three hours because dr. stroma tachi the donor larynx outside of Tim's throat first removing the damaged larynx we have to be careful not to disturb the new blood supply that we'd established with the donor organ the challenges posed by this larynx transplant were enormous tim's throat had been so badly damaged in the accident he needed much more than a larynx and we took five rings of this windpipe because his windpipe was crushed as well well in order to maintain the blood supply that we needed I felt it was necessary to transplant the thyroid gland and with that came the little parathyroid glands after twelve and a half hours the team puts in the final sutures tim has survived the surgery but there's only one question will he be able to speak the best thing tim can do to help restore his speech is to remain absolutely silent after an anxious two and a half days doctors ask their patient to speak okay Jim Heidler using a transplanted larynx speaks for the first time in 20 years it was a very coarse quality voice that there's nothing like what he has now and wasn't even made with his vocal folds but just the top of the voice box fluttering and he had tears in his eyes three weeks later tim meets the press the possibilities of the unknown to allow access to his new larynx in case of complications doctors decide to keep his trachea open in order to speak tim has to cover the hole to force air through the transplanted larynx yet it's a miracle that he can speak at all being able to speak again is going to change my whole life no I'm the recipient but without a donor without a doctor and without faith it wouldn't work then you know here it is a lot of people said it wouldn't work well it worked it's just amazing it's incredible just amazing [Laughter] today after years of recovery Tim sounds almost completely normal but the struggles of being voiceless for two decades still haunt him a lot of it's hard to explain because people take their voice for granted I mean it's part of a normal life to be able to talk when that disappears they just your body just starts fall apart yourself you lose all your self esteem you don't feel good about yourself and you just basically give up on life curiously Jim does not sound like the organ donor so far so good everything's doing good I don't sound like the donor because we have audio tapes of him and he was a very large man he had a real low voice and I have two brothers and four sisters and we think if anything I sound like my dad what makes us sound the way we do is the shape of our mouth the amount of space that we have on our head to resonate which is why our voice boxes can be very different in terms of dimensions sometimes but we saw very much like one of our parents today is a very good day great you're doing just perfectly as you can notice again run a [ __ ] way up II he has pitch he has inflection he has a totally normal speaking voice yeah it is it's amazing the results are really beyond my wildest dreams I feel so much better being able to speak again it just it's great my outlook on life is I just I keep going and going going I mean I just I don't feel down anymore I mean it's one of the greatest things that has ever happened to me although Tim endured 20 years with a robotic voice today Tim speaks and can even sing with a voice he can call his own and the land of the free and the brave you

Channel: Only Human

Views: 14,163,216

Rating: 4.9470921 out of 5

Keywords: Only human channel, only human, amazing medical stories only human, amazing medical stories full episodes, organ transplant documentary, only human channel 4, flesh eating fungus face man, worm in brain from pork, only human freaky eaters, only human obsessive compulsive cleaners, embarrassing bodies hair, amazing medical stories season 1, embarrassing bodies teeth, man with no face surgery, man with no face documentary, man with no face embarrassing bodies, man folded in half

Id: 5j2tQPhOHGc

Length: 10min 42sec (642 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 20 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/snowytop]

Wow fuck those guys who put up that wire. Ever heard of a fence? Still, amazing work by the doctor and what an amazing recovery from the patient!! Amazing stuff. I love that we get to hear his accent after recovery as well. :)

[u/_schindlerscyst]

Video not available in my country 😭 UK

[u/Yerson_Sot]

Now I understand batman’s voice