Each year in the UK about 20,000 people suffer from facial disfigurement as a result of the injury. It is an under-reported and underappreciated aspect of life in the UK. Roughly one in 1,000 people in the UK have a significant facial disfigurement that was caused by an accident.
Everyday, dozens of people are admitted to hospital with burns to their face. Mercifully, most people will only have first-degree minor burns, but every year about 2000 people get significant facial burns that cause lasting facial disfigurement. Treating these can be extremely difficult and there are many risks to physical and mental involved.
The face is one of the most delicate and vulnerable areas of the body. In physical fights, it is unfortunately usually the face that gets a lot of damage.
According to some estimates, injuries to the face from assaults are rising. By deliberately injuring somebody’s face, you do not just cause them the pain and anguish of being attacked, the victim is sometimes left with a permanent reminder of the assault. In many cases, the scars are plain to see and other people can find them intimidating, off-putting, or scary.
One of the great tragedies of human nature is that many of our greatest advancements come from our greatest conflicts. Nuclear power, radar, the internet, the list goes on for inventions that were born of the necessity of war. One often overlooked aspect of the advancements that come from war is the huge transformation in surgery that it has brought.