British pilot Henry Ralph Lumley following his facial operation, 1917 - 1918.

British pilot Henry Ralph Lumley following his facial operation, 1917 - 1918.

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Today 106 years ago, on March 11, 1918, British pilot Henry Ralph Lumley passed away following injuries sustained in a flight accident. His hospital case was important to the future development of facial reconstruction and plastic surgery.
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Henry Ralph Lumley was born on March 20, 1892 and worked at the Eastern Telegraph Company in London, before enlisting into the British Royal Flying Corps in December 1915.
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Lumley was admitted as an officer of the RFC in April 1916 and went to the Central Flying School in Oxford for pilot training. By July 1916 he had completed his flying training and passed the flying test. On July 14, 1916, while flying above Upavon in Wiltshire, Lumley had a flight accident in which his plane crashed, with Lumley suffering extremely severe injuries.
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His entire face was burned, losing his lips, eyebrows, most of his skin and his left eye and could barely see out of his right eye. Both his legs and arms were burned and he lost both thumbs. Yet, against all odds, Lumley survived.
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Initially Lumley was a patient at the King Edward VII Hospital for Officers, but in September 1917 he was transferred to a hospital in London for special facial reconstructive surgery, led by Harold Gilles - the father of modern plastic surgery.
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Using revolutionary new medical techniques, Lumley went through two reconstruction surgeries on October 24, 1917 and February 15, 1918, in which graft was stitched onto his different body parts.
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Unfortunately, due to the size of the graft and Lumley's already weakened state, the chest skin was rejected and he passed away of heart failure on March 11, 1918, 20 months following the flying accident and just short of his 26th birthday. He was buried in the Hampstead Cemetery in London.
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The case of Lumley taught Harold Gillies to conduct future operations more slowly and in smaller steps at a time. This lesson would go on to help save thousands of people suffering from facial burn wounds.

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