tougher in many parts of the country. i don't... i mean, i'm fully, fully reconciled to that. there is no good the prime minister hinting that further restrictions are coming into place in a week or two or three. that delay has been the source of so many problems. so i say bring in those restrictions now, national restrictions within the next 24 hours. president trump is recorded on tape asking an election official to find him extra votes in georgia. gerry marsden, singer of you'll never walk alone, has died at the age of 78 after a short illness. now on bbc news, robert chelsea was hit by a drunk driver sustaining

third—degree burns on over half of his body. in 2019 he became the first african american recipient of a full—face transplant. just an average person in the world is rear—ended by a drunk driver. and i said, ok, well, mr chelsea, we need to leave now or we're both gonna die. they described exactly what happened with the accident and then i wasjust in shock. he was burned to over 75% of his body. he was almost unrecognisable. reporter: 68-year-old robert chelsea is the first african—american and the oldest person to receive a full face transplant surgery. feeling all right?

what we didn't really realise what is what we were up against. facial transplantation has a lot of risks. squeeze, relax. he's notjust going to have this procedure and everything's just going to be smooth sailing. it's good that african—american patients that suffer from major facial deformities are aware that there is an option for them.

i got a phone call and it says oh, we have your dad. we just got into the car and we rushed over there. they described exactly what happened with the accident and then i was just in shock. yeah.

one thing i like about my dad is his love for the lord. i can really lean on that. the role of faith means everything to my godfather. we were thrilled and our prayers had been answered when he woke up, but what we didn't really realise is what we were up against. he was burned over 75% of his body, mostly upper body. he had lost his lips, a part of his nose, a part of his ear. he was almost unrecognisable. my godfather has since been through upwards to 40 surgeries. if it were me or somebody else, we would dwell on whether or not we were going to survive or dwell on how we would look.

you know, he's the type of person who is always going to ask you how you're doing, even when he's sitting in pain.

we then had to wait almost two years before we received a donor. he said, we're not going to accept the donor, and i said what, wait? let's talk about this. it was quite significant when you think about how he was going to look afterwards.

there's a serious lack of donors in the black community and minority communities as it relates to the need.

my godfather had to be prepared, packed and ready to fly to boston from los angeles the next morning. you had this whole accident and then now all of a sudden you have a whole facial transplant and go through a whole nother situation. why are you doing it? how's my friend? hanging in there, you doing good? good to see you, too, you look good. feeling all right?

i realise he's doing it for health purposes. now i'm like, ok, i kind of see the benefits of it. so happy for you. the fundamental principle of facial transplant is we recover organ — in our case it's the face — then we package it and cool it down so that it doesn't require as much energy when it doesn't have blood flow, and literally bring it to robert whose old scarred face is partially removed. some of the things are left behind, remaining structure of the nose, for example, remnants of lips that he had, and then the new face is essentially brought and gradually connected, the nerves, the vessels, the arteries, everything. i'm doing good, i'll be better in about 15 hours. could be 24, so i don't know.

so many logistical things that we'll have to figure out. laughter. thank you. we're not going anywhere. so what we'll do is we'll probably be able to get the scalp somewhere all the way up here, maybe even a little bit back. in this case, the donor was in another state so it required flying to recover him back. the deciding factor, how far we can travel and where the donor can be from is the time that we have between when the bloodflow through the tissue stops to the time when it's re—established. facial transplantation has a lot of risks. the ideal scenario is we come with the donor face and robert would be on the table with everything ready to go

so the vessels would be prepared, all the nerves would be prepared. all the structures are essentially ready to be connected. welcome. we all know about disparities in health and health delivery and it's good that african—american patients that suffer from major facial deformities are aware that there is an option for them. he came out and believe it or not he was already moving. there were already facial expressions. i really do see the same person. now, what looks really different is he has hair. it actually is funny because the next day you see the hair growing. it doesn't matter that it's on someone else, it just continues to do things that it does.

it was probably one of the most amazing experiences i've ever seen. i saw the picture, but to see for the first time it's like, shocking, overwhelmed, and ijust started crying. and then i had to ease myself into it. it's like you can close your eyes

and say, oh, my dad looks like this that's great, and his accident was like this and it made it look like this and as soon as you open your eyes, you're like, where is your dad? he's a different man. and that man, i don't know, i'd be like hey, how are you, like, morning, robert!

your temperature's a little bit high, isn't it? it's not too high but it is a low—grade temperature, 99.0. that's a lot for one day, too, right? one day at a time.

all types of things are going on with this, he's a science experiment, and then all of a sudden you're wondering what is really wrong with him? is his face really worth it? ebony hasjust been amazing. both of her parents are ill, both are elderly, and she moves from one house to the other, splitting her week. having parents that are ill and being the only child is hard. but you have to know inside your heart, you are willing to sacrifice some of your life. they sacrificed for you, are you willing to sacrifice for them?

i met robert through his tragic car accident where i pulled him from the car. ironically, that particular night, i was finishing a job and i left particularly early that day. i took a different route than i usually took and as i was coming over the off ramp, i literally thought a missile came across the freeway,

so i pulled forward, where i saw the explosion and the fire, pulled up to it and ran to the first vehicle. i noticed that it was fully engulfed in flames and i couldn't see anything inside so i ran to the other vehicle that was in front of it. saw the driver, passed out drunk. window was broken but i could smell the alcohol and he was snoring so i'm like, he's 0k, so i went back to the other vehicle. then, that's when i saw robert chelsea, on fire, flailing around, screaming. i did pull him out, he fell on top of me, he said, "what happened?" i said, "a vehicle hit you." he said, robert's — this is one of the things that remains in my mind, robert's first words to me were, "how is the other driver?" "is he 0k?" and i said, "yes, sir, he's fine." and i tried to get him to move and he screamed because his skin was completely melted and i've said, we need to leave now or we're both gonna die.

then as soon as we got to my truck, his fuel tank exploded, the vehicle popped up in the air, about 16 feet in the air. there were actually marks on the top of the freeway wall from his tires. pretty traumatic for robert. robert, you want to say grace? i have been blessed to have been introduced to robert. robert and i have become very, very close friends. when do you have to go back? did it help? good. i've explained this to you before, but your faith gives me tremendous strength.

yeah, it was receding but you had hair.

it was joyful, i was very happy, and ijust, all the people around and just finally, i accomplished getting my high school diploma, even though i got late, i still succeeded. you can never be too old to finish getting your diploma. even today, a year later,

easing in is still a process for me but i'm getting much better than i was before. robert's transplant surgery was over a year ago and due to the coronavirus restrictions on travel, we postponed his in—person visits for a number of months. a year out, i think robert is doing great. he is progressing well from the transplant standpoint. i think for him, the biggest issue is adjustment of his daily life to the new routine. the overarching problem that we are trying to avoid is rejection. every patient develops the rejection, the body essentially is trying to get rid of tissues that it recognises at the given time as foreign. we need to open up the eyes a bit, huh? that would be better, wouldn't it?

there are things we could do, surgically, to make things better, but we don't have to. everything kind of sagged down by gravity and by the fact that the new face is not as strongly connected to the bone and i would have to open up the entire incision all around, so all the way around your head, all the way down to the neck, and then we would have to lift things up, and suspend them. this is completely elective, so it doesn't have to happen next month or tomorrow. the nerves are reconnected but your brain is learning which ones are supposed to be controlled by what, and trying

to differentiate movements with help of speech therapy will help. you will still be getting better, there's another year that we know our patients are getting fairly dramatically better. and then at about two years from the surgery, that's where it plateaus. robert is a unique man. he is very spiritual, thoughtful, he really believes in god's plan for him. we'll keep chatting, all right?

sunday brought a cold day, pure showers on sunday computer saturday. some lying snow out there, the picture in worcestershire early on sunday. some fairly heavy rangers further south. through the coming week, no great changes in the general theme to the weather. cold with a mix of some rain, sleet and snow with a thrown into the mix,

especially further north. tonight, showers, particularly eastern scotla nd showers, particularly eastern scotland and england, packing this brisk breeze. icy patches in the north—east. further south, brisk breeze. icy patches in the north—east. furthersouth, rain showers as these cloudy overnight. temperatures overnight a couple of degrees above freezing, colder the further north—west. —6 for the west of scotland. this feature here is bringing some rangers to east anglia and the south—east, prickly down towards the channel islands. it is bonein towards the channel islands. it is bone in on brisk north—easterly wind. away from the south and east for the rest of the uk, the day will be brightening up. one or two wintry flurries here, claudia —based further south across england and wales. 48 mph gusts around the coast of east anglia and the english channel. temperatures for — 6 degrees. giving colder, particularly where you are exposed to the brisk

wind in the south and east. overnight into tuesday, more showers coming into the east of scotland, icy stretches likely. down in the south—east on tuesday, this area of rain is going to be really quite stubborn to clear away. wet weather for kent, down towards the channel islands, dry weather elsewhere further north. 3—6 and a bit of a wind chill still on tuesday. moving into wednesday, this area of high pressure looks like it is a way so as to the west. in between a couple of weather systems into wednesday. a bit of dry weather, with some sunshine, still some stubborn jurors could lingerfor the sunshine, still some stubborn jurors could linger for the likes of kent and the channel islands as well. sunny spells elsewhere, heavy snow into the north—west of scotland later in the day and it remains cold, 3—4.