When he was just a nine-year-old boy, Zimbabwean man Blessing Makwera was severely injured after a land-mine detonator blew up in his mouth, leaving his jaw and mouth insurmountably damaged. Now, however, Makwera is being offered a chance to beam a smile again, thanks to a collaborative 3D printed effort by the 
Blessing Makwera’s facial damage before surgery
From there, Blessing Makwera’s facial reconstruction surgery was undertaken by the Sharp Memorial Hospital in San Diego, where staff surgeons charitably spent two years planning the rebuild of Makwera’s face. During that time, oral surgeon Dr. Joel Berger reached out to 3D Systems to help prepare for surgical operation by mapping out a 3D model of Makwera’s damaged facial areas from the hospital’s CT scans. “I was running the surgical planning software on my computer in our offices in Golden while surgeons viewed my computer screen and directed the cuts and movements from a conference room in San Diego — all in real-time 3D,” says head of 3D Systems’ VSP Reconstruction services Mike Rensberger.
Dr. Berger studying 3D model of Makwera’s jaw
In addition to surgical preparation assistance, 3D Systems also utilized their 
“The surgical planning and guides that you constructed allowed the two surgical teams to efficiently and quickly reconstruct the defects,” said Dr. Berger. “The models, guides and templates were accurate, set very nicely, and allowed the surgery to go through without a hitch.”
After an intensive twelve hour surgery, Blessing Makwera was finally able to smile and speak through a jaw that both looked and functioned in the same fashion as anyone else’s. Now, at 23, Makwera can express his joy and laughter through a set of pearly whites, thanks to the Sharp Memorial Hospital surgery team and the use of 3D printed models and tools made by 3D Systems for Makwera’s now-repaired jaw.
