A man had half his jaw reconstructed using part of his leg after he fell on a metal bar while chasing the thief who stole his phone. André Gayoso, 35, was heading back home from a night out in São Paulo, Brazil, when a biker sped by and snatched his mobile out of his hand while he was waiting for an Uber.
He chased after the thief, but fell face-first on a metal bar outside a shop front in the process. The fall left him in a coma for 13 days and his bottom jaw was broken, as well as losing six teeth.
His chin needed to be reconstructed using bone and skin from his right leg and he has had 11 corrective surgeries so far. André was in Sau Paulo to promote his sunglasses brand and said they were the only personal item to survive the accident without “a scratch”.
André, a business owner from São Paulo, said: “It was very hard. When I woke up it was very scary because I couldn’t talk because I’d lost part of my jaw and mouth and I couldn’t move.
“I’d been in the coma for 13 days, so I’d lost all muscle mass. I lost around 20kg in 13 days.
“They wiped out my bank accounts, some crypto and my US bank account clean. It took me a month to get my stuff back in order.
“Honestly, I don’t see a light at the end of the tunnel, I imagine it. I have a purpose, that helps a lot. Also I am a very upbeat guy and I always look on the bright side, it’s the correct way to look at life.”
View 3 ImagesAndré Gayoso in hospital after his jaw was reconstructed(Image: André Gayoso/SWNS)
André was heading home in October 2022 from a night of clubbing when a cyclist snatched his phone from his hands while he was waiting for an Uber.
“I started walking and then waiting for my Uber and I lose my memory there walking towards the Uber,” he said. “I don’t remember anything afterwards, I woke in the ICU 13 days later.
“What I heard happened because I became quite well known – people did notice me and some of them were there that day because the story got really big in Brazil. They took the phone from my hand and I started chasing him.
“A bartender handed me a broom handle and I have a distinct memory of trying to use it as a spear to jab the wheel of the bicycle, but I’m pretty sure I had to get at least parallel with the guy to execute the throw. That’s probably what I was trying to do and either I was turning a corner or going through a tight space with stands and stores to the right.
“People were coming upward and I was going downhill on the road. I tried to dodge them, tripped and hit my head and chin on a square metal bar put there in front of the shops used to keep robbers from breaking in.”
Luckily, André was just 600 metres away from a local hospital, where he was taken to be treated. He spent a week in the ICU, racking up “enormous” medical debt and the “big surgeries” were covered by his health insurance, but all other minor procedures he is paying for himself. He continued to manufacture his sunglasses while in hospital.
“In the ICU my mum came and said ‘here’s your watch, here’s your shoes that came back, your pants and shirt were cut so they didn’t come back’, he said. “And then ‘oh last thing, your sunglasses are here’.
“There was not a single scratch on them or anything. Then I understood they were not going to break almost at all – I later drove cars over them and they didn’t break.”
View 3 ImagesAndré Gayoso after his jaw was reconstructed(Image: André Gayoso/SWNS)
André has since been through 11 corrective surgeries to help reconstruct his chin, with doctors initially attempting a skin graft from his left forearm, which did not work. Needing 7cm of bone replaced in his chin, doctors were forced to take from his right fibular bone in the 11-hour surgery.
He then had prosthetic teeth inserted and a further three plastic surgeries to shrink his mouth and help his speech as it was “too wide”. André also had to have a tracheostomy fitted for 11 months to ensure he would be able to breathe throughout his many surgeries.
“My last surgery was December 2025 so far,” he said. “Now I have more stuff to do, like laser to take the hair out of my lip because the skin on my lip is skin from my leg from my fourth surgery.
“I need laser to destroy the follicles of hair that are in my lip. Now I’m waiting to do another session for micropigmentation to make my lip look red again and then have beard and hair implants. I lost a lot of hair as 11 surgeries is too much stress on my body.”
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Focusing on expanding his sunglasses brand AAGYO – which has three different models – he hopes to release more models this year.