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00:00 that the eye's alive and looks healthy.
00:02 It's pretty special.
00:03 Aaron James is for his surgeons a glimmer of hope against blindness.
00:08 Rather than shriveling like a raisin as doctors feared
00:11 his donated eyeball still looks healthy six months after his surgery.
00:16 Even if it doesn't provide him sight in that eye.
00:19 The first ever successful transplant of an entire eyeball
00:22 it was already part of a rare partial facial transplant.
00:25 In Aaron's success his surgeons at NYU Langone
00:29 hope to learn more about how the critical optic nerve heals
00:32 and how it communicates with the brain.
00:35 Already the blood flow and the sensation is a feat in itself.
00:39 It would be great if he can see but with that alone
00:42 this far, this far that we've come
00:45 most people didn't even expect we would get here.
00:48 The initial goal in surgeons sights
00:51 was simply for an eyeball to provide support for the facial transplant.
00:55 Now with this tour of technical force
00:57 there's possibly light at the end of the tunnel for something bigger.
01:01 To better understand how the nerves slowly grow and heal.
01:05 A victim of a high voltage power line accident two years ago
01:08 the 46-year-old lost his left arm and much of his face
01:12 including his nose and mouth.
01:14 You can see from his right blue eye
01:16 but the brown one he's now received gives a glimmer of hope.
01:19 To be a part of this, I mean that's just
01:23 that makes me feel like I could be helping you know the next person.
01:29 Doctors now are waiting to see if the ever-tricky optic nerve heals
01:33 and if it sends signals to the brain.
01:35 Even if it doesn't, James's wife says love remains in the eye of the beholder.
01:41 For it's still him inside.