Five Years After Chimp Attack, Victim Helps Boston Doctors Study Treatments
BOSTON (CBS) -- A few years ago, Charla Nash didn't know if she'd be living today.
After she was attacked by an out-of-control chimpanzee in Connecticut, she came to Boston for a groundbreaking facial transplant operation at Brigham and Women's Hospital.
Now five years later she says, "it's given me a new life again. It's opened up the world to be out in the public and being part of the world again."
With funding from the federal government, local doctors are studying how her body handles experimental treatments that could someday become standard for wounded soldiers needing transplants.
But Nash has learned the psychological toll is just as tough as the physical challenges.
"I used to be so independent and do everything myself," Nash says. "Now I have to wait for help and ask for help."
How does she get through it?
"You can't think about the past," she says. "You just think about where you're going next and tomorrow."
This day, she won tickets to the Boston Flower and Garden Show from WBZ NewsRadio 1030.
She's giving them to her nurse.
"When people do so much for you, you wish you could give back to everybody."
Nash also dreams of life after the medical treatments, which she admits would ideally allow her to leave the very city that gave her life back.
"Maybe on a farm...nice small town where everybody knows everybody."
