Shamika Burrage, 21, an army soldier would have bled to death if she didn’t receive medical attention within 30 minutes. Her front tire blew out and Burrage and her cousin went off road in Odessa, Texas, in 2016. Her car flipped and Burrage was ejected from the car and had spine fracture, head, road rash, and lost her left ear. Her cousin suffered minor injuries.

Plastic surgeons were able to take Burrage ribs and harvest cartilage creating a new ear underneath skin of her forearm. Yes, she has an ear growing on her forearm…by allowing the ear to grow under the skin, new blood vessels formed. After growing her ear on her arm for two years doctors at William Beaumont Army Medical Center in El Paso successfully transplanted her new ear from her arm.

“(The ear) will have fresh arteries, fresh veins and even a fresh nerve so she’ll be able to feel it,” Johnson said on the US Army’s Website.

Burrage lived her life with a prosthetic ear, but never liked the way it looked. Johnson and other surgeons proposed Burrage at the medical center to grow an ear on her arm so they can transplant it.

“I didn’t want to do (the reconstruction) but gave it some thought and came to the conclusion that it could be a good thing,” Burrage said according to KTLA.com. “I was going to go with the prosthetic, to avoid more scarring but I wanted a real ear.”

Even though Burrage lost her ear in a car crash she finally regained a new one that she made herself, thanks to the doctors at William Beaumont Army Medical Center. What is the point of having one ear when you can have two.