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1 Surgeons are kind of like superheroes.

Because when things go badly wrong and we're in deep trouble,

they're the ones we look to... to save us.

Who else are you willing to trust with your life?

A discovery right out of a movie script.

The transplant of an organ that was, in part, grown in a lab.

- Paolo Macchiarini... - ...was kind of like a superhero.

He's on a mission to save the world.

He was a miracle man.

We are trying to create new organs.

We need to progress. We need new ways to do a transplantation.

He actually believes that he can alleviate the world from suffering.

It was said that Paolo was the private surgeon

of the president of the United States, the pope.

If you had a checklist of all the things that you wanted in a man, he was it.

He checked every single box.

Know that I love you. Every day more.

He's intelligent, worldly. He spoke all these different languages.

Love you.

But everything was a lie.

Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck you!

Everybody had been fooled by this man.

I was engaged to a monster.

Paolo was an absolute fraudster.

That's why we had to stop him.

Paolo Macchiarini treated people as human lab rats.

She was coughing up pieces of her own flesh.

The first liver transplant, the first kidney transplant,

the first heart transplant... Did they go all well?

No.

I think that this is the future.

The next patients, everything will be better.

The question is, was he torturing people to death?

It's the biggest con in medical history.

This guy might be an impostor, but he might also be a genius.

Maybe he is on the way to save mankind.

Was this guy a superhero,

a supersurgeon, and the love of my life?

Or was he a dangerous con man

and a killer?

In journalism, there's a kind of sacred rule.

You don't get involved with the subject of a story.

As a journalist, you're supposed to be objective.

As you're telling a story, you spend a lot of time with people,

and you spend a lot of time with them in intimate situations,

and you certainly can't get involved personally with somebody,

in a relationship,

because then your objectivity could go flying out the window.

And there's a very good reason that this sort of invisible line exists,

because it just helps maintain, you know, the integrity of journalism.

But, unfortunately, you know, it just didn't happen like that.

I've wanted to be a journalist since I was very young.

I was very shy growing up.

Painfully shy, actually.

I never wanted to be the one, you know, in front of the camera.

I much preferred being behind the camera.

I was at the height of my career.

I loved my job at NBC.

I was a single mother,

and I wasn't focused on having, you know, a relationship.

NBC wanted to do a story about regenerative medicine,

which I had never heard of. I didn't know what this thing is.

And so we start researching the story.

It's this very exciting, promising field in medicine

where the goal is to get to the place

where you can get replacement organs

or body parts just like this, you know.

The idea would be that you lose a limb, or you have a diseased organ,

you just go get a new one at the lab.

And this one name keeps popping up.

It's Dr. Paolo Macchiarini.

He is said to be the pioneer of this field.

From a landmark surgery

to a discovery right out of a movie script.

Doctors are celebrating a medical first tonight.

The transplant of an organ that was, in part, grown in a lab.

Prof. Paolo Macchiarini at Karolinska University Hospital, Stockholm,

performed the surgery with the help of an international team.

His nickname was The Supersurgeon.

He was adored and adulated.

He had almost this godlike status.

He had burst onto the world scene and into headlines

by doing this very innovative procedure using stem cells.

{n8}Surgeons in Sweden have carried out

{n8}the world's first transplant of a synthetic organ.

A 36-year-old man suffering from cancer received a new windpipe.

The first reaction was just to look at me and say, "Well, you're crazy."

And he said, "Well?" And I said, "Yes, I am."

"But this is your only chance you have right now."

"But how much is the success rate?"

And I said, "I don't know."

"Why?"

"I never did it before."

He was replacing the windpipe with a plastic windpipe.

They would bathe this plastic windpipe in the patient's own stem cells,

and then the idea was

that the stem cells would integrate into this plastic tube,

and then this was being transplanted into the patient.

In article after article, he's described as kind of the renegade.

He's the one who's willing to take risks that nobody else will take.

The more complex the surgery is,

the more higher the chances of risk you take.

The first liver transplant, the first kidney transplant,

the first heart transplant...

Did they go all well?

No.

We don't have the magic crystal to show...

to look in the future.

I think that this is the future.

I just thought, "Okay, this guy's bold."

He wanted to do something that nobody else was doing,

to save people who had no other hope.

I said, "Look," to my team. "This is the person we need to call."

And so we had made arrangements to meet him,

and I was with my colleague,

and I look up, and he walks in,

and he looks right at me.

And our eyes just met. Like, locked. And...

He kind of gave me this little smile, this little smirk, and I... instantly,

I felt like a silly little schoolgirl.

And this all happened so fast. Just in a split second.

And my first thought is, "What the hell was that?" You know?

And my second thought is, "Whatever the hell that was,

don't think about it." You know? Just like...

I'm... I'm... I'm forcing myself.

I'm in total work, producer mode.

I kind of, like, internally, pulled myself together.

I think I was probably blushing, quite frankly, you know, and...

But something happened. Our eyes locked.

And there was this... spark.

Immediately, I was a little thrown off.

{n8}This next story is a remarkable one about how stem cell technology

{n8}is changing the game and saving lives.

Two-year-old Hannah Warren was born without a windpipe.

There was one solution.

At the time, Dr. Macchiarini was working on the case of this toddler,

Hannah Warren,

that would be the youngest person in the world

to ever get one of his groundbreaking transplants.

She couldn't eat, she couldn't swallow,

she couldn't do anything that a normal little toddler can do,

and had spent her entire life in the hospital.

But she had all this personality.

She had this infectious thing about her.

Hannah was a magical child.

She was like pure sunshine.

Give Daddy a kiss.

Mwah! Mwah!

Her parents were desperate.

They had almost lost her so many times.

They had almost given up on her.

And then they found Dr. Paolo Macchiarini.

- Hello. - Thank you.

I think one of the things that's so endearing about Paolo...

He's not your typical surgeon.

It really looked like he really cared.

Do you want this taken out?

This feels like somebody that you can trust.

This feels like somebody that has your best interests at heart.

We had decided that we wanted to do the story about Hannah,

and, obviously, Dr. Paolo Macchiarini is a huge part of this story.

The surgery was going to be done in Illinois,

and Paolo was planning on spending about a month there.

And so I had to make several trips to Illinois to do filming.

When we were filming Paolo, we started joking

that he had this George Clooney kind of thing going on

because Paolo loves motorcycles.

And he's on that motorcycle,

and he's owning that motorcycle.

There are a lot of women in the office that were kind of swooning. Like, "Ooh."

And we wanted to get footage of Paolo on a motorcycle,

so we rent him a motorcycle.

And they film him, you know, riding around on the motorcycle.

Then I think we had a few hours or something left on the rental.

He said, "Does anyone want a ride?"

I was sort of hesitant.

I looked around and said,

"Anyone else want to go?" And they said, "No, go."

He puts the helmet on me,

and he was very tenderly, like, strapping the thing,

trying to fit it on my head. I was struggling with it.

I remember at that moment feeling a little bit of what I had felt

that first time our eyes connected in the restaurant in Boston.

It felt intimate, in a way, and it felt flirtatious.

And I got on the back of that motorcycle with him.

He said, "You need to hold me tightly because I'm gonna go fast."

When you're on the back of a motorcycle, you've kinda got to snuggle into somebody.

It was a beautiful day. The wind is whipping.

I am holding him.

And I remember joking afterwards to my friends, like,

"I rode on a motorcycle with George Clooney."

We started going out to dinner in between shoots, or at the end of a day,

and I was so blown away by the fact that this man,

this supersurgeon,

is so caring... and

so willing to just listen to me

and has taken so much interest.

Not long after he took me on the motorcycle,

we went out one night to dinner.

We were staying at this hotel in Illinois. I think we were about two floors apart.

We were in the elevator, and it was just the two of us.

And his floor was first.

And the doors open.

He says good night,

and then he backs out of the elevator very slowly.

And he was holding the door open with his hand,

and he's just kind of looking at me, and I'm, like, looking at him,

and the doors start to close,

and he backs out, and I'm saying good night,

and then, all of a sudden, he pushes the elevator with both hands,

and he just leans in, and he kisses me.

It was such a surprise.

But also so damn romantic.

It was like out of a movie.

And I just thought, "Shit."

"I'm falling for this man."

My second thought was...

"Shit. Uh-oh."

"I'm not supposed to fall for this man. We're still filming him."

Okay, give me a hug. Give me a kiss.

Mwah. I love you so much.

Did I brush my teeth?

Yes. Your breath don't stink.

- Ah. Hey! Hey! - Yeah, I'm gonna tickle you.

I'm gonna tickle you.

My brother was very passionate about being a dad

and being the best person he could for his daughter.

I was nine years older than Christopher,

so I enjoyed having him as a little brother.

I really did. I loved him a lot.

He has a little girl. Erin.

And, uh... Erin looks just like him.

Chris had just turned 30.

We found out that he had a growth...

...on his windpipe.

And... my heart dropped.

It was a shock to us.

And he was devastated but, soon afterwards,

he became determined that he was going to beat this.

He said he wanted to stay alive for Erin. He wanted to walk her down the aisle.

Chris Lyles went to a specialist. Within 24 hours,

the 30-year-old learned he had cancer.

He soon learned the prognosis.

Uh, I'll be dead in six months.

You know, and I have a positive attitude about it.

Every person I talk to that has cancer, or dealt with somebody that has cancer,

they said you gotta stay positive.

He immediately started radiation and chemotherapy.

But every last person came back with the same answer of,

"I'm sorry. There's nothing else he can do."

I felt like I had to do something.

And one night I was sleeping,

and I woke up from a dream.

Something just told me... stem cells.

My husband started just doing a search.

We found an article, and then some video

of Dr. Macchiarini with Diane Sawyer from ABC News.

Now in medical news, a breakthrough.

A report that a doctor has found a way to grow

a new windpipe for patients with cancer.

It was just shocking to even... watch it.

{n8}It's considered the holy grail in its field.

A transplant of the trachea.

And last month, Dr. Paolo Macchiarini did it twice.

{n8}My husband decided to send a message.

Dr. Macchiarini responded.

"I think I can help your brother."

Those words were the first words we ever heard from anyone...

From anyone...

...that said that they could help.

There was my hope.

Maybe Chris was gonna live.

If you can take out the tumor completely, then... it is curative.

So you can expect to have a very long, uh, survival.

He and Chris started having their own personal talks,

discussions, through Skype.

Chris initially thought that they just connected really immediately,

like it was this instant...

...trust.

He really came out of that conversation with,

"Yeah, I definitely want to do this."

I'm gonna be gone for a little while, right?

Mm-hmm.

You know I'm gonna be gone for a while? You know why? Do you remember why?

What did I tell you?

Remember that I was telling you that Daddy was sick?

- Yes. - Yes?

We knew that it was experimental surgery, for sure.

We knew that because the US government wasn't even allowing

that to be done in our country.

If you have a patient that is dying, uh, and you think that... it might help him,

then, uh, what is ethical?

To leave him alone? Or to try to help him?

What was most important

is that we knew that Dr. Macchiarini was on staff

at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden,

which is known to be one of the best hospitals in the world,

and that's where the medical Nobel Prize is given out.

UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL

So we just thought, "We can't get any better."

"He's, like, the best of the best."

- Hi, everybody. - We're actually sitting on the plane now.

And I just wanted to say hi to everybody, you know.

Tomorrow morning, we will be in Sweden.

Paolo was more like a god,

uh, a messiah, for organ regeneration.

I was part of Paolo Macchiarini's team at the Karolinska

and a surgeon.

There is no other situation that I can think of

where you actually are asleep and you cannot do anything,

and you put the life in the hands of a surgeon.

The first time I actually met Paolo, he had some sort of aura of mystique,

one can say.

You don't really understand exactly who is this guy.

I was in a meeting.

We were sitting around a room, he was standing in a corner,

but deserved all the attention of the room.

Um... That's quite a feature, actually, to pull off.

When Paolo arrived, he was a star. He was a superstar.

His vision was to regenerate new windpipes from plastic material

covered with the patient's own stem cells.

And if this works at the Karolinska, they want to make a clinic around Paolo.

The idea was to have a center where people from the entire world

would come here for these organ transplantations,

and the Karolinska would make a lot, a lot of money.

He was able to make us all feel that we were part of this team

that will make the future happen now.

You need to progress. Otherwise, um,

there will be no new ways to, um... do a transplantation.

For me, he was a person, really, to look up to.

Paolo once said to me,

"There is no person above me

except God."

And then I asked him, "So, the pope is not as high as you are?"

"No, he's not."

Paolo said he needed to replace Chris's windpipe

using his own stem cells.

And that was just amazing.

Any surgery is risky,

but this was super risky.

Once you take out a part of the airway,

you need to know that you are able to reconstruct the airway.

If you are unable, the patient dies in the operating room.

Chris joked about it to Paolo the night before his surgery.

He said, "Tell me, Doc. I'm a guinea pig, right?"

And Paolo didn't want to hear that.

He didn't want Chris to feel that way.

And I believed that.

He's world-renowned, he's the best.

I was assisting Paolo on this operation.

I was holding the sutures.

I was exposing the tissues for Paolo Macchiarini.

Exposing vessels, exposing airway, and so forth.

Helping him implant this plastic tube.

After 15 hours of surgery,

Paolo finally appeared at the door.

And he had a smile on his face.

And he said, "It was successful."

I had prayed for a miracle.

And Paolo was that miracle for us.

I got scars running now up and down my chest.

But, uh... as you can see, I'm here.

I'm still... still kicking and breathing.

I mean, it's kind of difficult though, but...

Two thumbs up.

One of the things that made Paolo intriguing is he's this world traveler

who works all around the world.

He's Italian, he's dashing, he's charming, he's gorgeous.

He speaks five or six languages.

He works at the place that awards the Nobel Prize in medicine.

He has a beautiful house in Barcelona,

and he's always running from Barcelona to all these other parts of the world.

And he lives this very exciting life.

I'm not a big fan of long-distance relationships.

I think they're really difficult to sustain.

But with Paolo, somehow it wasn't.

At the beginning, we were careful because of the professional thing,

and I was trying to figure out what to do about it.

But Paolo just wanted to go, you know, "To hell with everything."

He was in constant contact.

I mean, he was texting me all day long.

Gushing, romantic messages.

I, um, just wanted to...

um, send you a few loving, good morning words.

And a lot of kisses to my princess.

Passionate, tender, and loving kisses.

If he was gone for a long time, he... he would just sort of

go out of his way to make me feel loved and special.

There was a constant, consistent level of excitement to our whole romance.

It was never dull.

The very first trip we ever went on, Paolo said, "I want to surprise you."

- And my love... - I don't know where we're going.

My love still doesn't know where we are going.

He takes me to one of the most romantic cities in the world.

Venice, Italy.

I've never been to Venice.

The whole trip was just magic.

{n8}Romance on overdrive.

And it was the beginning of him sweeping me off my feet.

And I mean really sweeping me off my feet.

On that first trip we went on to Venice, he introduced me as his wife.

I remember nudging him under the table.

I'm like, "What are you doing?" And he just thought it was so funny.

There was something definitely that I noticed early on.

He liked to be the center of attention,

and he just likes... sort of playing with people a little bit.

And if that meant bending the truth a little bit, it...

he got some sort of kick out of that.

He liked to exaggerate.

It went hand in hand with all these grand gestures.

{n8}Being with Paolo was literally like being in a fairy tale.

{n8}Everything was so extravagant and over the top,

and every single trip, there was a surprise.

Look for the lights.

Oh my God! Wow!

Love you.

Money was an absolute nonissue.

He not only paid for everything,

but everything was the best hotel rooms,

the most expensive restaurants, the most expensive wine, shopping sprees.

He flew me all over the world.

Türkiye, Russia, the Bahamas, Puerto Rico, Greece.

Hear the waves of the sea.

- I love you, my love. - Love you.

There were so many magical trips.

One of the things about Paolo, and it's something my friends still talk about, is,

not only does the man speak five or six languages, he had five or six phones.

It was kind of ridiculous because sometimes

he'd lay them out in front of him.

He'd say, "This is the Barcelona phone, this is the US phone,

this is the Russia phone, this is the Swedish phone."

I mean, talk about James Bond.

Who walks around with four or five phones,

and who can even keep track of four or five phones?

But he would pick up one and he's speaking in one language.

He'd pick up another one and he's speaking in another language.

He said he needed a different phone for every place he worked.

That it was just easier.

Later, I would have other theories about his many phones,

but at the beginning, it added to his appeal.

After the surgery, we didn't see Paolo that much.

He was flying this place, he was flying that place.

He had, um, one of his assistants look after Chris.

Is it okay, Chris?

- Here. So, you try to hold it. - Hmm.

Very soon after surgery,

Chris Lyles gained an infection in the airway,

so he started to cough enormously hard.

This, you know, really, really deep cough.

He got mucus clots in the airways.

What also happened was, he got an infection in the wound.

So he had a quite dramatic early postoperative period.

We took care of it very urgently.

We directly, actually, could take him to the operating room

and remove the mucus clots, and so forth.

But it was a little bit unusual

that you get the infection so early on after surgery.

He had to stay longer than what we initially thought

he would be in Sweden.

Eventually, my brother was demanding to come back home

because he needed to see his daughter.

Oh, sorry.

You just take a small walk, then turn left.

He was recovering, so he could, uh, go back to the States.

I was really, really happy for Chris.

Oh, that's a moment in time.

- I'm just happy to be home. - I know that's right.

- I'm just so happy to be here. - Yes.

Within a week or so, he had to go back to the hospital.

On March 5th,

my phone rung in the middle of the night.

And when I answered the phone,

my mom

was, um... was screaming.

And she just yelled out,

"Chris is dead. Chris is dead."

He was gone.

He fought so hard.

And he was gone.

A sad farewell for a Maryland man

who helped change cancer treatment worldwide.

Lyles remained optimistic and hopeful till the very end.

At that time when Chris Lyles was operated,

I truly believed in Paolo.

I truly believed in this, uh... method.

It could have just been, you know, bad luck

with postoperative infection that caused this.

Even though he had passed,

we still believed that... that people were going to benefit from it.

I continued to support Dr. Macchiarini's efforts in regenerative medicine.

Yes.

When Hannah's transplant was completed,

there were press conferences

and Paolo saying that you can see the new cells

growing on Hannah's windpipe.

It basically seemed like a miracle. Paolo had done the impossible.

All this is a journey of 25 years,

and, um, I cannot express what it means to me as a scientist.

As a man.

But it didn't take very long before it became clear that something was wrong.

Hannah wasn't doing well, and there was concern.

And then I get this text saying

she passed away.

And I burst into tears.

Obviously, the immediate question is,

okay, what happened? Did something go wrong?

Does this mean the windpipe failed? That it didn't work?

But Paolo was absolutely insistent that her death had nothing to do

with the windpipe itself failing, and that her death was

caused by other complications.

Hannah's family very bravely put this beautiful tribute on Facebook

calling Hannah a pioneer.

That her death was not in vain

because Paolo and his team would learn from her death and her case.

And that it would help somebody else down the road.

Well, now we had a huge dilemma.

We were struggling with what to do with the story.

We didn't have the beautiful happy ending that we'd hoped to have,

and we almost killed the whole story.

Maybe there was a way to salvage the story

by piggybacking on the message that Hannah's parents were putting out there,

that her death was not in vain.

And so, at that point, we pivoted.

We decided if we talked more about some of Paolo's other patients

and how he was learning from each one of these cases,

that that way we could still do a story

about the hope of this very promising field.

Now Paolo was more the focus of the story.

We reached out to Christopher Lyles' family.

I knew they were big supporters of Paolo, in spite of Chris having died,

and so we wanted to interview them with Paolo.

I just want to thank you because...

No.

No, Paolo, 'cause...

- I thank you. - You did, you know...

You gave us hope when no one else did.

And, um...

That's the greatest gift we ever got through this whole thing.

That's right.

He came in and he met Chris's daughter and he was so sweet with her.

I miss him.

I just want to be up there, like, with him.

Wherever he goes.

- He's with you. - Oh...

Come here.

Give me a hug.

- I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. - I know.

But he's a good man. He was a good man.

Christopher did not die for nothing. And Hannah... too.

So we need to move forward.

We don't have the right to stop.

Paolo Macchiarini thinks totally different from most surgeons.

He thinks that each time he is doing anything,

he's doing something spectacular.

But now there were some questions.

Is this a successful method, actually?

And I was starting to doubt what to think and what to believe.

The more people started to question, actually, Paolo Macchiarini,

the more annoyed he got.

I think he looks at himself that he is

the closest person to God.

Actually.

Fast-forward, Christmas 2013,

Paolo came to stay in New York with me.

It was very casual.

He cooked a big, elaborate meal.

We had Christmas music playing, and we were sitting on the couch,

exchanging gifts, and he handed me this little box.

Open it.

Then I open the box,

and it's this beautiful diamond ring.

Oh my God.

I just... I kind of froze.

Do you love it?

And then I said to him, "Is this what I think it is?"

And he just smiled. And he nodded.

Just, wow, you know?

I was completely floored.

It was such a simple proposal.

It was really beautiful.

We also knew that we weren't going to share this with many people yet.

Because we were still waiting for the story to air.

I kept asking, "What are we gonna do for New Year's Eve?"

And he was a bit evasive. He kept saying, "I might have a surgery."

Um... And he didn't give me much information, but he...

I think a day or two before, he just said, "I'm really sorry, but I have to go."

We had just gotten engaged, and I was basking in the glow.

I didn't want him to leave.

I said, "Really? On New Year's?"

And he was insistent. "It's an important surgery. I have to go."

So, I was peppering him with questions about, "Really?"

"Who do you have to operate on on New Year's Eve?" And...

He kind of hemmed and hawed, and he was a bit reluctant,

and then he said, you know, "I have to tell you something,

and you're not really supposed to know this,

but I have some very high-profile patients."

I said, "What do you mean?"

And he said, "Well, um, I have some celebrity clients,

and some people who are world leaders and dignitaries."

He just said, "These people don't want their private matters made public."

And he told me that he was part of a kind of secret network of doctors

that takes care of these people.

And he finally told me

that he was going to see Bill and Hillary Clinton.

I... I... Uh, I remember I was stunned.

He said that he and Bill were friends,

and that they had a kind of special camaraderie,

and that Bill had specifically asked that he come and check Hillary out.

After that, every few months or so, there'd be an emergency surgery.

People like the Emperor of Japan.

There were important people in Russia that he attended to.

Because it was so secretive, even in our private texts,

he used initials for everybody.

So, Bill Clinton was BC.

He's in Japan, and one day pops up a message about BO.

At first I didn't even make the connection.

I'm thinking, "Who? BO? Who's that?"

And he was teasing me back and forth. "I don't know who that is."

Are you talking about Barack Obama?

Thank you very much.

He was. I thought, "Wow, okay." You know?

Now you're taking care of the president too?

It seemed to make sense

that Paolo ran in these circles that most people don't understand,

you know, that he's taking care of world leaders and celebrities

because of his stature.

He's at that level. He's the supersurgeon.

It kind of made me proud of him and proud to be next to him.

My name is Bosse Lindquist, and I'm an investigative journalist

at Swedish public service television.

When I first came to hear about Paolo Macchiarini, my boss said,

"Oh, you should take a look at this, um... this piece of paper."

"It's a disgruntled professor at the Karolinska

who, um, has come with this to us." It's a letter of accusation,

where they basically accuse a colleague,

which was Paolo,

for more or less having killed his patients

and, um, committed fraud in science.

And I said, "Well, yes, I could take a look at it,

but it's completely impossible that this is true."

"These things simply do not happen at the Karolinska."

I was pretty sure it was slander.

So the first thing I did was to see what I could find.

And there was lots.

I found several documentaries on the net that had already been done about his work.

Fantastic programs that showed what a good guy he was

and how he'd saved the lives of his patients.

Benita's film for NBC stood out.

As the program progresses, Macchiarini's patients die.

But what the program-makers say, and what Macchiarini says is,

"Well, I mean, this is really difficult. It's hard."

"It's a method that is being developed, but the hope is there,

and we shouldn't be small-minded

when we look at Macchiarini's work."

I picked up the phone and called the Karolinska switchboard,

and they put me through to Paolo's answering machine.

And in two days' time, I had a call from him.

He said, "You're very lucky

because I'll be passing from New York to Moscow Wednesday."

"If you can be at the institute between 3:00 and 5:00,

um, I'm at your disposal."

"Bring a cameraman. We are not wasting time."

When I came to Karolinska,

I was a bit surprised because Paolo's PhDs

and medical assistants were not behaving the way they usually did.

They were more like private secretaries somehow than normal PhDs.

And then he entered a bit like... not Bill Gates, more like Bono,

having this air of coming straight from Paris, New York, uh... Rome, or somewhere.

Paolo made clear very early on that he had had difficulties,

and that there were adverse outcomes,

and that patients were doing... uh, were doing poorly.

But, according to him,

this was because these patients had multiple diseases or were infirm,

so that was clouding his results.

If you test a new surgical method

on a person with, um, life-threatening conditions,

obviously it will be harder to know what the actual effect is of your method.

With a lab rat, you would select a perfectly healthy lab rat

so that you wouldn't have anything that would cloud your results.

So, what he really wanted was comparatively healthy patients

to try out his plastic tracheas,

his plastic windpipes on.

Paolo is the kind of person that likes to have

a number of balls in the air the whole time.

So, at the same time that he was doing the first plastic implants in Sweden,

he was negotiating in Russia to get permission

to do proper clinical trials there.

He was given permission by the Russian authorities,

and he had the opportunity to actually select

among quite healthy patients as his subjects.

Young, healthy, and strong. Those were the criteria.

And by the summer of 2012, he was ready to do the first trials.

One of the things that touched me the most when I was researching Paolo is

there's a documentary about him in Russia, in Krasnodar,

with Julia, this Russian dancer mom.

You look beautiful.

Thank you.

We might need to take a part of the muscle.

The first option is to do an incision here and an incision here.

She was this absolutely beautiful,

young former dancer and mother in Russia.

I mean, she's gorgeous.

And she was in a tragic car accident,

and as a result of this,

her windpipe was damaged and she had a hole in her throat.

And for Julia, who is this very vivacious,

beautiful young woman with her whole life ahead of her, this was devastating.

And they actually, in Russia, had a lottery,

equivalent to a lottery,

to basically win the opportunity

to have famous surgeon, Dr. Paolo Macchiarini,

give you a new windpipe.

And she made a video.

Pleading, you know, with Paolo, "Please let me be the one."

"Please help me."

My name is Julia Tuulik.

In 2008, I was in a very serious road accident.

I had a tracheostomy inserted.

Now I have a tube that constantly grinds on me.

It hurts a lot when I speak, breathe, lie down, and sleep.

I have lost my health and my beauty.

My little boy is the only thing that makes me happy.

I'm so blessed to have him.

But he has never heard his mother sing, not even a lullaby.

As you can see, I'm a normal, nice, young girl,

and I would like to live like other normal people.

She didn't actually need this transplant.

She was not at death's door,

but she wanted to be back to normal. Very understandable.

As I was scouring the net for documentaries about Paolo Macchiarini,

one of the stories was made by the German broadcaster,

which showed, in close detail, his surgeries in Russia

where they followed his work on Julia Tuulik.

Another bit of suction.

Julia.

It's me.

We finished the operation. Can you say something? Say something.

Hello.

- Thank you so much. - Good.

Congratulations to everybody.

Will I be able to play with my son?

Yes, as much as you like. Okay?

Don't worry.

Don't worry, okay?

The film is incredibly moving.

I mean, he is giving her back a gift of a 100% normal life.

Julia had been fearful, but then she had, at the same time, been sure

that Macchiarini was the guy who would make her life perfect again.

This is Julia.

When I met Julia,

she was not able to play with her child.

It was a very emotional, uh, moment for me,

and I immediately said, "This is the right patient."

And I still do not believe

that a few days ago she couldn't breathe and talk normally.

So, um, she's a little bit afraid of you, so please be very sweet.

I'm not afraid of anyone.

I've got so many plans, so much I want to do.

First, I need to get well,

and then I'd like to continue my studies.

It's very persuasive.

Paolo is the gift of God to mankind.

He's really helping this young lady.

So I thought, that's fantastic.

I mean, the program says that it was a big success.

That might mean that Paolo's methods,

maybe they're not 100%, uh... perfect,

but apparently they work in some places.

So this is really essential.

I should get hold of Julia and ask her how she's doing.

And then a couple of days later, our colleague, Johannes Wahlström,

managed, against all odds, to locate her mother.

I managed to track down Julia's mother

who is a lady living in a suburb outside of St. Petersburg.

And I call her, and I ask if it's possible to speak to her daughter.

And the mother responds that, "Yeah, you can speak to my daughter."

"But in order to do that, you need to die."

"Because she is already dead."

I am taken aback.

Because I've just seen her on the screen, just a few hours earlier.

And I don't really know what to make out of that.

I basically ask her what happened,

and the mother says that it was all, uh... you know...

It was all fake.

And her daughter went through pure horror until her death.

And this was just, you know, a big scam.

Uh... and torture, and murder.

She was coughing up pieces of her own flesh.

That's the way that she retells it on the telephone,

but it's a short conversation that we have.

But I realize that, right there and then,

uh, that the story that I have seen just a few hours earlier is...

is a lie.