London – In a medical first, a French surgeon says he has performed a second face transplant on the same patient – who is now doing well and even spent a recent weekend in Brittany.

Dr. Laurent Lantieri of the Georges Pompidou hospital in Paris first transplanted a new face onto Jerome Hamon in 2010.

But after getting ill in 2015, Hamon was given drugs that interfered with anti-rejection medicines he was taking for his face transplant.

Last November, complications led Lantieri to remove the transplanted face.

That left Hamon without a face, in a condition Lantieri describes as “the walking dead”.

In January, a second transplant was conducted. Lantieri said Hamon is now recovering well.

Doctors say, as with other organ transplants, it’s not unexpected that some face transplants need to be replaced.