Badly burned Texas man waits for face transplant

Dallas Wiens wants to smile, smell the rain and feel his 3-year-old daughter's kisses.

FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) - Dallas Wiens wants to smile, smell the rain and feel his 3-year-old daughter's kisses.

Wiens' face was burned away two year ago in a horrible electrical accident that also left him blind. Doctors were able to transfer skin and muscle onto his charred skull, but he still doesn't have lips, a nose or even eyebrows.

Now the new federal health care law has helped make him eligible to become perhaps the third person in the U.S. to ever undergo a face transplant.

Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston approved him as a candidate month. The federal health care law helped him overcome one hurdle by allowing the 25-year-old Fort Worth man to be covered by his father's insurance.

Doctors say he'll likely wait months more before a donor is found.(Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This story may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.)