Pavel Silivonchik, 37, from Belarus, was badly injured in a car crash and lost half his face but he is delighted with a tattoo he has had made to replace his right eye
Man gets eye tattoo after car crash
A man who lost half his face in an horrific car crash has had tattooed made for his missing eye.
Pavel Silivonchik, 37, was badly burnt in the smash and suffered 35 fractured bones, including to his spine. He now has a prosthetic nose and recently had a right eye tattooed after he lost it in the road accident.
The tattooed eye was drawn on skin implanted from his armpit to cover the area on his face. “I think this is a colossal result,” he said of the work of tattoo artist Alla Romazanova.
The businessman from Belarus is married and runs his own transportation business company. Pavel continued: “Everyone who writes negative comments is wrong….. Personally, I am satisfied with everything.”
While the tattoo artist said: “A piece of [skin] was taken from his armpit and hair grows on it, so the eyebrows now have their own hairs, which makes them even more natural. My work changed his appearance, and I gained tremendous experience. We continue to work.”
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Pavel said: “When the piece of skin healed, I met with Alla. First, she drew my eye with felt-tip pens, tried it out, and everything seemed fine. Then she practiced on latex. The whole work took about four hours.”
Pavel thanked her and his doctors for the surgery which saved his life, and gave him the chance to rebuild his face. “A lot of work has been done on me,” he said. “Compared to what was immediately [after the crash], now little is noticeable. The doctors told me: ‘You are the only such specimen’.”
He has told of the cruel comments and looks he received once he started to go out as he recovered after months in hospital. “People looked closely. Adults did not say anything out loud, and children sometimes would say: ‘Look, look, the guy with the missing eye’,” he said.
“But it did not bother me, and I did not feel any open negativity. I had completely different thoughts: how to recover as quickly as possible, start working and do things that are interesting for me.” On his prosthetic nose, the second since the crash, he laughed: “Let’s say it doesn’t fall off in the wind and when I run, it doesn’t fall off either.”
He continued: “I had 35 fractures, including spinal. There were metal structures. I could not sit for a long time, I re-learned to walk, move my arms and legs.” He does not recall the days before and after the accident, so he cannot say exactly what happened then.
After the accident, he spent four months in the hospital, including one and a half months in intensive care. “I did not understand much at the beginning,” he said. “When I saw what had happened to my face in person, I realised that I would have to go through a long recovery.
“There were so many surgeries that I lost count. After each one, there was time to heal, then some more manipulations. My wife supported me, she wasn’t scared. My friends didn’t turn away – that’s the main thing.” He said: “The sculptors did everything based on my photographs. The prosthesis was paid for. I won’t say the amount, I will only say that it was affordable for me.”
Pavel walks around the house without the prosthesis but added: “I still wear it outside so as not to shock people. There is no discomfort.”
