Grandfather Receives 3D Printed Face After Being Dragged Underneath a Drunk Driver’s Car

A man who suffered devastating facial injuries after being hit by a drunk driver has been given a new face — one that’s 3D printed.

Dave Richards, a 75-year-old grandfather of four, was cycling in the English village of Meare with friends in July 2021 when he was struck by a drunk driver who was on his phone. 

“It was a lovely sunny day, and not long into the ride we were going up a hill,” Richards recalled, per The Guardian. That’s when the driver came speeding behind him and his friends: “He was on his phone, racing up behind us and we were all in line. He wanted to swerve around us, but there was a car coming the other way, so it was either smash into the car or smash into us.”

“My two friends were knocked clear but suffered multiple fractures,” he told the BBC.

“I, unfortunately, got trapped underneath the vehicle so I got severe burns down one side of my body and face and suffered crush injuries, ribs on my right hand side.”

As Richards, who hails from the English county of Devon, explained further, he was dragged along “with the engine and exhaust burning through one side of my body and the other side being crushed by the car,” per The Guardian.

The accident left him with significant, visible wounds to his face, as he explained, and doctors “were worried any infection could spread from my eye down the optic nerve to the brain so the eye was removed,” Richards said. “The decision was then made to go for free flap, [which is] taking tissue with blood, arteries and veins [from another part of the body] and plumbing it into my neck, the flap completely covering the side of my face.”

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The surgery saved him — but left Richards missing half his face. “I felt very vulnerable, and would not expose myself to social situations.”

Richards was referred to the North Bristol 3D Medical Centre — the first of its kind in England — for a new eye and face prosthetic, created with 3D printing technology. The prosthetic matches his skin tone, and is created with an advanced plastic resin, which Amy Davey, the senior reconstructive scientist at North Bristol NHS trust, said is made with materials that “are safe against the skin for long periods.”

The center has also made other, non-cosmetic supports for Richards; As he said, per Daily Mail, “After wearing the neck brace for a week, which was produced using their 3D technology, I was amazed. It definitely has helped because it has put pressure on the scar line, softening the tissue and making life easier to wear my face prosthesis.”

“It took me a long time to feel comfortable about my image, how I thought people looked at me and what they thought of me,” he says. “I have come a long way in that respect.”