Reports about this poor individual known as hippopotamus man being thrown off a bus for scaring children inspired a kind-hearted surgeon to offer him surgery that has rebuilt his face.

It also means that he has been able to smile for the first time in a long while after two of the deformities that left his cheeks swollen and looking like a hippo were also removed, allowing him once again to turn up the corners of his mouth.

The 29-year-old, given the pseudonym Fang Yuan in local media reports, suffers from a rare disease that left local media describing him as a hippo in reports about how he had been thrown off a bus for making a child cry.

The report was seen by Professor Li Qingfeng, the deputy dean of the Ninth People’s Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine and the director of orthopaedic surgery, in December 2020.

He said he remembered the video report well, and the headline about the hippopotamus man that was more like an alien creature than a human being.

He told Chinese media he was determined to help, and wanted to give the man the opportunity to “rewrite his life.”

Together with his medical team, they reached out to Fang Yuan was invited to come to Shanghai for treatment.

Wei Min, director of the Department of Craniomaxillofacial Department of Plastic Surgery, also in the Shanghai Ninth People’s Hospital, accompanied the team’s deputy chief physicians Yuan Jie and Yu Zheyuan as they put together a special team to discuss how best to treat the condition.

The diagnosed that Fang Yuan suffered from “juvenile ossifying fibroma”, a benign bone fibrous disease which is relatively rare clinically.

In 2005, the World Health Organization classified the disease into two types: traditional and juvenile.

The medical team found that Fang Yuan belongs to the adolescent type and as with most other cases his version manifested on the head and face and it was also extremely painful.

They said that despite the surgery which affected so many parts of his face including the maxilla, palatine bone, nasal bone, sphenoid bone, ethmoid bone, temporal bone, frontal bone, zygomatic bone, mandible to mention but a few issues one of the main problems is always going to be also stopping excessive bleeding.

They also wanted to avoid nerve damage including to the eyes, and reduce the infection risk.

The operation was planned has now been successfully completed in two phases, with a first on 1 March and the second on June 21.

In a report, the hospital said that the man claimed he now had more confidence with his new look, and was able once again to smile.