A 42-year-old volunteer firefighter who received a groundbreaking face transplant at a Manhattan hospital meets with reporters for the first time to share his story. Our Michael Herzenberg has the story.

"I do whatever I want to do," said Patrick Hardison. "I get them out of school we ride four wheelers we do we always like to have fun."

Hardison is living life again, after a historic face transplant.

Doctors initially gave him a 50-50 chance of survival.

But he's gone a year now without his body rejecting his new face, a crucial milestone.

The father of five's biggest challenge now sounds refreshingly mundane.

"Well, I got five kids so that's every day is a challenge, I don't really have any challenge the challenge was before the surgery," Hardison said.

Hardison was a volunteer firefighter in Mississippi in 2001 when a burning roof collapsed on him destroying his face. He says for 14 years he struggled to even cope with each day. Those are memories his children would rather forget.

"It was hard people staring at him and having to worry if kids were gonna run away being scared and just hearing screams," said Cullen Hardison.

Then last year, a 26-year-old from Brooklyn died in a bicycle accident, and his face was donated. It was a life changing decision for Hardison.

"When he called to tell us that we had a donor he was like 'I'm gonna get to look normal walking you down the aisle' and I was like that's the least of my worries right now," said Patrick's daughter Alison.

Doctors at NYU-Langone Medical Center performed the 26-hour face transplant last August, using the donor's face, scalp, ears, ear canals, eyelids and some skull bones.

"Patrick looks like his children because of the selection of the donor but also because of the underlying structure or matrix or skeleton," said Hardison's surgeon Dr. Eduardo Rodriguez.

NYU says there have been more than three dozen similar procedures around the world but this was the first to include the scalp and functional eyelids.

"The amount of soft tissue that was transplanted has been the largest about that's been performed in a face transplant," Dr. Rodriguez said. "Now we know that this can be performed safely, reliably."

Doctors have reduced Hardison's regimen of rejection drugs and they say in the next year swelling will come down in his face.

He hopes to work again soon with a mission to give people with facial injuries hope.