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Chimp Attack Survivor Shares Her Appearance After Revolutionary Face Transplant, 16 Years On
16 years after receiving a life-altering face transplant, a lady whose face was torn off by a chimpanzee has shared her appearance.
At her Connecticut home in February 2009, Charla Nash, now 71, was assaulted by her friend Sandra Herold’s chimpanzee, Travis, who tore off her hands, nose, lips, and eyelids.
Herold used a shovel to try to halt the animal during the attack, and then a big knife to stab him in the back, but no amount of effort could stop the insane animal.
Charla, who was badly mutilated in the attack, was taken to the hospital and left battling for her life after the police arrived on the scene and shot the animal.
At Brigham and Women’s Hospital, she had a full face transplant in 2011—the third such treatment the hospital has ever performed—and had glass eyes installed.
Now, sixteen years after the attack, Charla thanked the surgeons and said the face transplant “brought my life back.”
Speaking to 60 Minutes Australia, she said, “It’s a wonderful thing and words can’t express the gratitude but I had this opportunity to live a better life.”
Charla reported that she has resumed eating solid meals and that she is gradually regaining sensation in her face.
She added, “The nose and the upper lip I can’t feel yet, but little by little it’s coming back, I can feel my cheek and forehead, so it’s getting there.”
“I was only drinking everything from through a straw and my goal is to be able to eat again.”
Charlie, who is in an assisted living facility, receives speech therapy and rehabilitation every day.
She said, “Life’s getting better, it is coming around slowly but yeah it’s getting better, It’s hard but it’s better.”
Nash has been undergoing medical testing ever since the US military paid for the facial transplant to find out more about how it might benefit injured troops.
The facial surgery went well, but her hands’ transplants were rejected by her body.
After the chimp, who had been an actress and had starred in ads for Old Navy and Coca-Cola, spread a sickness that caused Nash to lose her sight, she had her eyes removed.
Nash, a former horse jumper and barrel racer, said she has had to ask for assistance rather than doing everything herself, which has made her more patient.
However, after completing her medical exams, she decides to focus on the future and hopes to live on a farm in a small village.
Sandra Herold reared a chimpanzee named Travis in Connecticut, treating him like her son.
Because the 200-pound animal would open doors, dine at the dinner table, dress himself, and drink wine from a goblet, it was believed that he had been domesticated. He even made use of the computer.
However, Travis attempted to break in by stealing Herold’s car keys and using them on other vehicles in February 2009.
Herold, who passed away in 2010, gave Travis some iced tea laced with Xanax in an attempt to get him back into the house.
The animal viciously assaulted Herold’s friend and coworker Nash when she came to the house to assist.
Investigators hypothesised that Travis would have thought Nash, who knew the chimp, was an intruder when she showed up sporting a new hairstyle.
It’s possible that Xanax, a medication used to treat anxiety in people, contributed to Travis’ hostility.
Nash’s face transplant was paid for by the US military two years after the incident. She undergoes testing every few weeks in exchange for paying her medical expenditures.
To find out how well her brain is communicating with her new face, she undergoes MRIs and CT scans. Doctors also check the arteries’ ability to supply blood to the transplant.
Additionally, the military wants to keep an eye on the scarring surrounding her lips and the function of her eyelids.
Charla disclosed in 2014 that she hasn’t been independent since the incident and that others are scared to approach her.
“Unfortunately, there’s not a whole lot I can do,” she told the Boston Herald. “I’ve lost so much independence… I could change my own truck tire, and now I can’t even feed myself.”
She aspires to be able to live at home rather than in a facility one day. in the assisted living facility.
“I’ve never been a quitter,” said Nash, who bought up her daughter, Briana, on her own.
She is collaborating with campaigners on a video to promote stricter regulations on exotic animals and hopes to use her tale to help others avoid going through a similar experience.
She claimed that having Travis imprisoned at her friend’s house never made her feel comfortable. In 2010, Sandra Herold, the friend, passed away due to an aneurism.
“I remember looking at him in his cage and feeling sorry for him,” she said. My thoughts were always, “How is she allowed this animal in her house? What if he gets loose someday and somebody gets hurt? I know the animals are cute – but they’re just not pets.”
Her family requested authorisation to sue Connecticut for $150 million for failing to confiscate the animal prior to the incident.
However, the state asserts that the commissioner gave his consent, arguing that at the time of the incident, private chimpanzee ownership was not illegal under state law.
The estate of the animal’s deceased owner compensated her $4 million.
Herold’s estate was required to give Nash $3.4 million in real estate, $331,000 in cash, $140,000 in machinery and equipment, and $44,000 in cars as part of the settlement agreement submitted to the Stamford Probate Court.
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