Brave chimp attack victim speaks to Oprah

A WOMAN who suffered devastating injuries after being mauled by a crazed chimpanzee has spoken for the first time about her horror ordeal.
Charla Nash, who had most of her face torn off during the frenzied attack, went on camera to reveal her torment eight months after the attack.

The 56-year-old suffered appalling injuries leaving her with no eyes, mouth, eyelids and nose.



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She also lost all the fingers on both of her hands as they were chewed off.

Speaking about being set upon by a friend's 200lb chimp, Ms Nash said: "I don't ask a whole lot about my injuries and I know that I have my forehead."

Ms Nash broke her silence for an interview on The Oprah Winfrey show which was aired in the US yesterday.

She told Oprah she wakes up every day in her hospital room at the Cleveland clinic where she is being cared for.

Happy ... Charla before the horrific attack

Veil ... Charla speaking on Oprah

Doctors change her bandages daily. But she said she rarely touches her face so as not to learn the full extent of her injuries. She added she must drink all of her meals with a straw though a small hole where her mouth used to be.

Ms Nash said she longs for the day when she might be able to eat "a hotdog or piece of pizza". She was left near dead when her close friend's house trained ape, Travis, brutally mauled her after escaping the home he was raised in from infancy. Travis' owner, Sandy Herold, used a butcher's knife to stab the 14-year-old chimp in a desperate bid to save her friend.

The animal was suffering from Lyme disease and had consumed the anti-anxiety drug Xanax .
The rampage was only ended in Stamford, Connecticut, when police shot the animal dead.

Ms Nash told Oprah: "I don't remember anything and they told the doctor that I don't want to remember." Paramedics at the scene said it looked as if Ms Nash's hands had been through a meat grinder as they picked up her chewed off fingers from the floor.

Since the attack she has been recovering at the Cleveland Hospital in Ohio where America's first full face transplant was carried out.

Friends say Ms Nash, who was devastated after her eyes were removed due to infection, is considering the transplant operation.

Oprah revealed during the show: "Only in the past couple of weeks did she realise that she no longer had eyes, because she had been saying that she was hoping to be able to see at some point."

When outside her hospital room she wears a hat and veil, usually made from a handkerchief attached the brim of a straw hat.

She said she wears the veil "so I don't scare people. And sometimes other people might insult you".

Ms Nash has filed a civil suit against Herold seeking $50million in damages for pain and suffering.


Herold says that Ms Nash was her employee at the time of the attack and is entitled only to file a workman's compensation claim, which would greatly limit the amount of money she could receive. Her family are also set to sue the state for $150m, saying officials failed to prevent the attack.

Ms Nash told Oprah that taking care of the ape was not part of her job and she was scared of even being around the animal. She said: "I do remember going to feed him a couple of times. "He was big and scary. He was huge."

Travis, she said, was Herold's pet and not part of Desire Me Motors, the towing company she ran out of her home, where Ms Nash had worked.

She added: "It was her pet that she wanted for a companion... But if she had to rush out or couldn't come home, I fed him."

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