Emanuel Zayas, 14, will have surgery at Holtz Children's Hospital at Jackson Memorial in Miami, this holiday season to remove a 10-pound tumor that covers his face. (Photo: C.M. Guerrero, AP) 
 
 A 14-year-old boy died after undergoing surgery to remove a 10-pound tumor from his face. 
 
 Emanuel Zayas and his family traveled to the U.S. from Cuba to have the surgery in Miami. Doctors and relatives confirmed Zayas died Friday, according to statements reported by the Miami Herald and NBC 6 in Miami. 
 
 "I am saddened by the fact that we are losing him and that the physiological stress of the surgery was apparently too much for his compromised anatomy," said Dr. Robert Marx, chief of oral and maxillofacial surgery for the University of Miami Health System, in a statement to the Herald. "Our hopes of saving his life, and with that allowing him a better quality of life, were not realized." 
 
 When the growth first appeared, Zayas and his parents thought it was just a pimple, but the tumor eventually grew bigger than a basketball. 
 
 Although the tumor was benign, doctors were concerned it was big enough to suffocate Zayas or break his neck. Last month, doctors revealed a surgery had been scheduled to have the tumor removed. 
 
 "Our condolences and prayers for Emanuel's family and the loss of a very brave young man," said Marx, as reported by NBC 6. "Another angel has arrived in heaven." 
 
 Zayas' condition is known as polyostotic fibrous dysplasia, which caused the boy's body to develop scar-like tissue instead of bone. Marx first learned of Zayas' condition after viewing photos and X-rays presented by missionaries during a medical conference. 
 
 Marx said Zayas' family will donate his body to science to help them learn more about polyostotic fibrous dysplasia. 
 
 Follow Brett Molina on Twitter: @brettmolina23. 
 
 Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2F4aRSi ||||| A woman has met the man who received the face of her dead brother in a groundbreaking transplant. 
 
 Rebekah Aversano saw – and touched – the transplanted face for the first time in an emotional meeting with Richard Norris, who was severely disfigured in a shooting accident. 
 
 The encounter was filmed by 60 Minutes Australia and will be broadcast this weekend. 
 
 Aversano’s brother Joshua, 21, was run over and killed by a minivan while crossing the street three years ago. His family, from Maryland, donated his face to Norris. 
 
 The Virginia man had undergone dozens of conventional operations to try to repair damage from the shooting accident in 1997, when he was 22. They had limited success, leaving him depressed and suicidal. 
 
 The Aversano family’s donation gave him another chance. In one of the most complex face transplants in history, a team at the University of Maryland medical centre took 36 hours in March 2012 to transplant teeth, a jaw, tongue muscles and nerves. 
 
 Norris, now 39, thanked Rebekah in a meeting at his home in Virginia. Reaching out her hand, she asked: “Do you mind if I touch it?” After doing so she stepped back, astonished: “Wow, this is the face I grew up with.” 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest These photographs, released on 27 March 2012 by the University of Maryland medical centre, show before-and-after images of Richard Norris. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images 
 
 Joshua’s mother, Gwen, told Canada’s CTV News network the family knew the donation was the right thing to do. 
 
 “We can definitely see our son in him,” she said. “Some of the facial features would definitely be our son, so we could see similarities, very much so. We are just so pleased we have been able to help him. Even though we had such a tragic loss, we were able to give someone else the benefit of our son.” 
 
 Norris said that before the transplant he lived through hell, venturing out at night to minimise contact with people and wearing masks to disguise the horrific injuries caused by an accidentally self-inflicted shotgun blast. “I’ve heard all kinds of remarks. A lot of them were really horrible,” he said. 
 
 He chose to have the transplant even though doctors gave him only a 50% chance of survival. 
 
 The doctor who performed the operation, Eduardo Rodriguez, said Norris took on an enormous responsibility because his body will always regard the new face as a foreign object, prompting attacks by his immune system. 
 
 Norris cannot drink, smoke or get sunburned and must take a cocktail of anti-rejection drugs for the rest of his life. 
 
 A naval research grant intended to help wounded military veterans partly funded the operation. 
 
 Doctors in France performed the world’s first partial face transplant in France in 2005 on a woman who was mauled by her dog. Of 27 subsequent face transplants, four recipients have died.
– A 10-pound tumor with the potential to suffocate or break the neck of the Cuban 14-year-old whose face it was covering was successfully removed in Miami, but then things took a turn. The Miami Herald reports Emanuel Zayas died Friday night due to kidney and lung complications at the Holtz Children's Hospital. Emanuel suffered from polyostotic fibrous dysplasia, which USA Today reports spurs the body to grow something akin to scar tissue instead of bone; his family initially thought the growth, which the Washington Post reports surfaced when he was 11, was a pimple. His parents sought help for years, but Cuban doctors were too skittish over the risks of surgery. The family finally secured a humanitarian visa. It allowed him to fly to Miami on Nov. 27 and undergo surgery Jan. 13 at the hands of Dr. Robert Marx, who heads up maxillofacial surgery at the University of Miami Health System and had once removed a woman's 16-pound facial tumor. Said Marx in a statement: "After visiting Emanuel last night and observing a ray of hope from his pupillary reflexes and the muscle tone of his face, I was informed this morning that his condition had turned grave. ... The physiological stress of the surgery was apparently too much for his compromised anatomy. Our hopes of saving his life, and with that allowing him a better quality of life, were not realized." Marx says the teen's body will be donated to science by the family, in hopes of learning more about the condition.