Woman can speak again after voice box transplant

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A 52-year-old woman who underwent a rare voice box transplant has been reunited with the surgical team that helped restore her natural voice.

Brenda Charett Jensen was in danger of having her real voice silenced forever because of vocal cord damage. She is now able to speak again.

Jensen reunited with her doctors Thursday in Sacramento, her first public appearance since undergoing the surgery last October.

Doctors say Jensen is only the second person to undergo a successful larynx transplant in the United States.

Jensen damaged her vocal cords more than a decade ago after she repeatedly pulled out her breathing tube while under sedation in the hospital. Before the latest operation, she “talked” with the help of a hand-held device that sounds an electronic voice.

She still breathes with the help of a tracheotomy tube and is relearning how to swallow.

In 1998, doctors at the Cleveland Clinic restored the voice of Timothy Heidler after a motorcycle accident.