A shotgun victim who received America's first face transplant has unveiled it to the public and pleaded for people not to judge others by their disfigurement.

Connie Culp, 46, lost her nose, palate and lower eyelids when her husband fired a shotgun in her face in 2004.

Thomas Culp, a painting contractor in Unionport, Ohio, turned the gun on himself but survived. He was sentenced to seven years in jail.

Ms Culp, who has a son and a daughter and two grandchildren, was so severely disfigured that she was unable to leave her home without being shunned and teased.

One one occasion, she heard a child tell his mother: "You said there were no real monsters, Mommy, and there's one right there."

Ms Culp pulled out her driving licence to show the child what she used to look like, saying: "I'm not a monster. I'm a person who was shot."

Hundreds of fragments of shotgun pellet became embedded in her face, and she needed a tube into her windpipe to breathe. Only her upper eyelids, forehead, lower lip and chin remained.

Before receiving her transplant, Ms Culp underwent 30 operations to try to fix her face. Doctors performed skin grafts from her thighs, took pieces of rib to make cheekbones and built an upper jaw from leg bone.

The surgery still left her unable to eat solid food, breathe on her own, smell or smile.

In December, Ms Culp became the first face-transplant recipient in the United States, and the fourth worldwide, since pioneering surgery in 2005 in France on Isabelle Dinoire, who had been mauled by a dog.

Surgeons at the Cleveland Clinic spent 22 hours lifting the face off a brain-dead donor and attaching it like a mask to Ms Culp.

She received about 80 per cent of a new face, all but her upper eyelids, forehead, lower lip and chin.

Despite her baggy jowls, Ms Culp can now talk, smile, smell and taste her food again. In January, she was able to eat pizza, chicken and hamburgers for the first time in years.

Doctors plan to pare her drooping skin as her circulation improves and nerves grow, reviving her facial muscles.

Ms Culp left hospital on February 5, but must still take anti-rejection drugs. She appeared at a press conference on Tuesday to plead for tolerance. "When somebody has a disfigurement and don't look as pretty as you do, don't judge them, because you never know what happened to them," she said. "Don't judge people who don't look the same as you do because you never know. One day it might be all taken away."

She said when she first met her plastic surgeon, Dr Risal Djohan, he told her that he wasn't sure he could fix her face, but promised to try.

"Here I am, five years later. He did what he said. I got me my nose," she said.

Times Recommends

• Henning Mankell: ‘If Wallander was alive, I wouldn’t be a friend of his’
• Secret society's skull and crossbones for sale
• Nigerian leader vanishes after medical treatment