The doctor who has already performed a couple of face transplants explains to the firefighter who flew off at 600 m/s that the tissues so traumatized must be filled in so that the face offers more naturalness, so that people do not look at him and look at him with so much apprehension and daring. It will be the last, after 18 years. “How many have we done, already? 15, 16…?”. Doctor Joan Pere Barret and firefighter Rafael Olalla then share a complicit smile.
On the morning of January 12, 2006, firefighter Olalla cordoned off 66 of the Rambla del Fondo de Santa Coloma de Gramenet. It was a routine service. Olalla was shot out, flew 25 meters, spent a month unconscious in the Vall d’Hebron hospital. Two people died. And the helmet saved his life, but it destroyed his face, took away his expression, stole his sight. He was 39 years old. La Vanguardia already gave an account of the first lines of this story.
A pioneering application of adult stem cells, a new nose with forehead tissue, an ear and a rib, 69 screws so nothing breaks down. “Amputations generate empathy – says Dr. Barret – but facial disfigurements arouse rejection. The face is our business card, it determines our relationships. The meaning of this job is to help people get their lives back.”
Yes, the filling operation will be the last of this process. But the definitive one was the previous one, the one that a year and a half ago brought symmetry back to Olalla’s face, the one that recovered his ability to express his feelings. “Before it was as if half of my face was sad and the other half happy”. The key was to restore an ever-afflicted eyebrow.
The fireman was said to be the first blind person to kitesurf. Many will remember some intervention on TV recounting his adventures in Brazil. Because that’s how people stay calm, imagining that those who suffered terrible misfortunes now lead fantastic lives. Many times the stories of self-improvement are bastardized, concentrated in a long-winded circus of sometimes eccentric successes.
But Olalla’s real victories are less showy. He always carries his white cane everywhere, but he loses a lot of it because it’s been a while since he’s barely carried it, because as a good fireman he’s used to moving in the dark. And so he moves through this world with some ease, and from time to time he goes out for a little dance, to see if he meets someone, who is already tired of ephemeral encounters, at the City Hall, the Luz de Gas, the Bikini… nightclubs where some doormen meet him and then give him a hand to find a taxi, which is full of very bad people in the city.
And he also trains a football team of active firefighters who have never flown. In any case, when they are winning or losing by three goals, in the last minutes, Olalla acts as a player coach and jumps onto the field. “I also like to go on getaways, in Madrid and Malaga, where I made many friends. It’s that these years I’ve had to screen a lot of people. With me, love and good luck. And if not, then nothing… And maybe write another book. 69 screws and blind What now? is in its third edition. It’s self-help… once a girl wrote to me and said that after reading me she finally dared to go to the beach again. That was really big, really.”
Olalla is also planning a big trip around Southeast Asia. He really wants to know Thailand. The thing is that his parents have grown old, and lately he does not want to be away from them, he wants to take care of them, listen to their things, walk on the shore… Maybe there is no other sample clearer that this firefighter somehow after his face also rebuilt his life, that he is finally leading a normal life. That perhaps it is not the most normal thing in the world to worry about parents who are already old? The other things are anecdotes that look great. “I also want to be close to my son, and teach him things…”. His son is also a firefighter.
