8:50 a.m. Himel has moved his attention from the woman's chest to her neck and discovers that the acid has burned all the way through the dermis on the right side. He carefully slices away the damaged tissue.

9:40 a.m. Having removed all the dead skin from the chest and neck, Himel holds the patient's left thigh taut while the surgical assistant uses an electric-powered device to peel away two foot-long strips of the epidermis and the upper part of the dermis from the woman's left leg.

9:50 a.m. As the surgical assistant uses a razor to make tiny pinpricks along the entire length of each skin strip, Himel explains, "Pinpricks will allow the fluids and blood to seep out and any bacterial growth to leave the wound bed."

9:53 a.m. Displaying jigsaw-puzzle finesse, Himel and Polynice arrange and rearrange the strips over the patient's neck and chest, trying for a placement that will leave as few visible seams as possible. Finally they decide on two strips laid lengthwise, beginning under her chin and ending at the base of her neck.

9:57 a.m. Polynice begins stapling the grafts to the adjoining healthy skin. In tricky areas, he resorts to tiny steel clips that he squeezes closed with surgical forceps.

10:10 a.m. Himel decides he wants to graft two separate pieces of skin onto the woman's chest so that they meet in a seam between the breasts. He is concerned that a single band of skin might contract when it heals. Needing more skin, he measures for it by placing a piece of gauze over the remaining uncovered area.

10:30 a.m. Using skin sections taken from the patient's inner thigh, Himel deftly sutures the pieces together on her chest.

10:35 a.m. The surgical assistant places wound dressings over the donor sites on the thigh, which should heal enough in two weeks to provide additional donor skin if needed.

10:50 a.m. Winding down the procedure, Himel injects a saline solution under the skin grafts to irrigate the wounds before nurses cover them with an antibiotic and a gauze dressing. He takes his final photos of the grafted areas, which are now neatly covered with skin lined by shiny staples.