Army soldier grows ear in arm for reconstructive surgery

A soldier who lost her ear in a 2016 car accident has a newly transplanted ear that was grown in her own arm, the Army said.

Plastic surgeons at William Beaumont Army Medical Center in El Paso, Texas, performed the Army’s first ear reconstruction and transplant, a statement from the armed service branch said.

“I didn’t feel comfortable with the way I looked so the provider referred me to plastic surgery,” Pvt. Shamika Burrage said in the statement. “I didn’t want to do [the reconstruction] but gave it some thought and came to the conclusion that it could be a good thing. I was going to go with the prosthetic, to avoid more scarring but I wanted a real ear.”

Burrage was driving from Mississippi to Fort Bliss, Texas, two years ago when her front tire blew out. Her car skidded 700 feet and flipped several times, according to the statement. Burrage, along with her cousin who was in the front passenger seat, were both ejected from the car and she “suffered head injuries, compression fractures in the spine, road rash and the total loss of her left ear.”