Video: “Under The Knife” Explores Changing Face Of Cosmetic Surgery

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TUPELO, MISS. (WCBI) – From tummy tucks and eyebrow lifts to scar revisions, millions of Americans undergo cosmetic or reconstructive surgery each year.  And it’s not just the rich and famous.   In part one of a special series,  we meet a woman who has literally gotten her life back because of reconstructive surgery.

It was eight days before Christmas and Shannon Bagley Randle and her friend had been shopping. As they were about to get into their car in this parking lot, a man and asked for a ride to the hospital. They told him to get in the back seat. Shannon was in the front passenger seat, her friend was driving . Shannon remembers hearing a loud noise.

“A man tried to rob my friend and I and he shot me in my face and it broke my jaw, shot me in my forehead and it grazed the top of my scalp, he shot me in my shoulder and in the back of my neck,” Randle said.

The shooter fled but was arrested a short time later in Attala County. Incredibly, Shannon survived, However, the terrifying ordeal left her scarred and disfigured. Dr Leland Chrisman of the North Mississippi Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Center did the initial surgery, but Shannon would need much more to get back what she lost.

“The reason I had to have plastic surgery was when he shot me in my face it shattered my jawbone and the right side of my cheek. It was a mess There was a hole in the side of my face from where the gunshot came out and it had scarred down to the cheek bone and was an indent on the side of my face. I could not open my mouth, like I couldn’t eat a cheeseburger the regular way,” she recalled.

Dr John Griffin performed the next surgery , known as scar revision.

“What I did, went in, removed a lot of the scarring tissue, I excised some bone from her lower jaw that the scarring tissue was causing constriction, did some facial cosmetic surgery that relived her facial scarring as well,” Dr. Griffin said.

Now, several months later, Shannon is grateful for life, health and most importantly, a chance to get back her self esteem and confidence.

“The scar was hideous, it was pretty bad, to me it was, it wasn’t like something I was used to, I wasn’t used to that on my face so he fixed that also. Thank God,” she said.

Dr. Griffin says cases like Shannon’s are gratifying.

“From the time she was in harm’s way, just seeing the change that she underwent with her procedure and how pleased and happy and how life changing it was for her, it’s very rewarding,” he said.

In 2011, reconstructive plastic surgery procedures increased five percent over the previous year. The top five procedures were, tumor removal, laceration repair, maxillofacial surgery, scar revision and hand surgery.

In part two of “Under the Knife: the changing face of plastic surgery” Allie Martin introduces us to a Lee County woman who wasn’t satisfied with her appearance and did something about it.

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