Girl Mauled By Raccoon Receives New Ear

A girl who was mauled by a raccoon at the age of 3 months old is getting ready for a surgery to further repair the face she lost so many years ago. Charlotte Ponce, now 11, was 3-months-old when she was left alone and brutally mauled by a raccoon, leaving her with no nose and missing an ear.

According to ABC News, Charlotte’s great-aunt and uncle, Sharon and Time Ponce from Spring Lake, Michigan, saw Charlotte’s story on TV and promptly stepped in to adopt both her and her older brother Marshall.

“The raccoon pretty much ate the right side of her face, all the way back to the ear,” said Sharon Ponce, 54. “Her right side is totally scarred and she’s had three surgeries to remove some of it almost two years ago.”

According to Fox News, Charlotte is about to undergo yet another surgery, this time to replace the ear that was mauled off by the raccoon so many years ago. A surgeon at a Detroit-area hospital is reportedly planning to perform a procedure that will “begin the process of creating a new ear” for Charlotte.

The surgery has been scheduled for Tuesday at Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak. According to ABC News, Sharon says that the family is a tad nervous about sending Charlotte into surgery, but they have confidence in the abilities of the doctor.

“There is a certain amount of nervousness,” said Sharon. “It’s hard when your child is going into surgery, but we are confident the doctor knows what he is doing –- he’s done it before.”

Plastic Surgeon, Dr. Kongkrit Chaiyasate, will be performing the operation. The procedure reportedly involves cutting cartilage from her ribs to be used to help build a new ear, and according to ABC News, this procedure has only been done twice before.

“What you do here is you need a framework and you put that framework under an area of skin to allow the framework to stay and become part of the body,” he told ABC News affiliate WXYZ. Hospital spokesman, Mark Geary, continued on to say the following about the procedure:

“Dr. Chaiyasate will pull a piece of the rib and mold it into the shape of an ear and put inside her forearm to grow. Then, eight weeks later, they will remove it and attach it to her ear.”

While the operation has the family nervous, they say they have faith in Dr. Kongkrit Chaiyasate because he’s worked on Charlotte before when he helped to craft a new nose for the her after being mauled by the raccoon.

[Image via Shutterstock/Pam Blizzard]