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Oprah Winfrey interviews Charla Nash, the Stamford woman who was mauled by a 200-pound chimpanzee on Feb. 16, on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" Wednesday. Nash revealed her badly disfigured face during the interview. The chimp also tore off her hands. |
Charla Nash had not shown her face publicly since the February attack that made her a national fascination, a woman mauled by a chimpanzee, left to live with no hands, nose, lips or eyes.
The Stamford woman knows the tabloids have been vying for a picture of her, she told Oprah Winfrey. Cellphones and cameras are banned from her hospital room, and a guard stands outside to protect against photographs. She had taken to wearing a hat with a veil that covers her face, so her face would not scare people.
Until Wednesday.
>> Click here to view pictures of Charla Nash on Oprah.com from her interview with Oprah Winfrey. WARNING: these images contain graphic content.
In an interview with Winfrey that was taped Tuesday and aired Wednesday, Nash showed her face on national television. She has no eyes. Much of her scalp is missing. A piece of her leg was grafted to create a nose, and she has a hole in her face through which she can eat and drink using a straw. Doctors were able to reattach one of her thumbs.
Winfrey said Nash decided to reveal her face on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" because she wanted to do it on her own terms.
"People are going to say what they're going to say," Nash said. "I need to move forward and get better and stronger."
Nash, 56, wore the hat and veil for much of the interview. She sat in a chair and wore a blue tracksuit, with a towel draped over her shoulders. Her slightly slurred words were accompanied by subtitles.
"Would you mind lifting the veil?" Winfrey asked about midway through the interview.
"Oh, not at all," Nash said.
>> ABCNews Video: Family of Chimp Attack Victim Said She's in Denial
After a commercial break, and after a warning from Oprah to the audience that "it really is nothing you can prepare for," Winfrey removed Nash's hat.
Your picture is going to be broadcast all over the world, Oprah told her. "And that's fine?"
"Yes," Nash said. "I'm starting to get stronger and ready for everything."
Nash was attacked Feb. 16, outside the Stamford home of her longtime friend and employer, Sandra Herold. Herold had asked Nash to come help her shepherd the chimpanzee into her house.
Police shot and killed the animal after it attacked Nash. The doctor who treated Nash at Stamford Hospital, Dr. Kevin Miller, said on Winfrey's show that several chimpanzee teeth were "implanted" in Nash's bone. "I couldn't believe that this woman was awake and conscious when she came in," he said.
The story has drawn intense attention. Early reports focused on Herold, who considered the chimpanzee a son, dressed him and fed him lobster. Since then, much attention has focused on Nash, her medical condition, what it would be like living with such a severely damaged face.
Lawrence Williams, a professor of marketing at the University of Colorado at Boulder's Leeds School of Business, said people's interest in tragic stories may reflect a tendency to derive positive feelings from negative circumstances.
"It may be the case that people are generally attracted to intensely emotional, arousing experiences, and horrifying television moments provide that emotional jolt of arousal that would be difficult or dangerous to come by otherwise," he said. "Another possibility is that we are attracted not to the negative feelings themselves, but rather to the feeling of relief that results after we can convince ourselves that everything is OK."
Nash, who has been receiving treatment at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, said she does not remember the attack. And she's glad. "I want to get healthy," she told Winfrey. "I don't want to wake up with nightmares."
The Stamford woman knows the tabloids have been vying for a picture of her, she told Oprah Winfrey. Cellphones and cameras are banned from her hospital room, and a guard stands outside to protect against photographs. She had taken to wearing a hat with a veil that covers her face, so her face would not scare people.
Until Wednesday.
>> Click here to view pictures of Charla Nash on Oprah.com from her interview with Oprah Winfrey. WARNING: these images contain graphic content.
In an interview with Winfrey that was taped Tuesday and aired Wednesday, Nash showed her face on national television. She has no eyes. Much of her scalp is missing. A piece of her leg was grafted to create a nose, and she has a hole in her face through which she can eat and drink using a straw. Doctors were able to reattach one of her thumbs.
Winfrey said Nash decided to reveal her face on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" because she wanted to do it on her own terms.
"People are going to say what they're going to say," Nash said. "I need to move forward and get better and stronger."
Nash, 56, wore the hat and veil for much of the interview. She sat in a chair and wore a blue tracksuit, with a towel draped over her shoulders. Her slightly slurred words were accompanied by subtitles.
"Would you mind lifting the veil?" Winfrey asked about midway through the interview.
"Oh, not at all," Nash said.
>> ABCNews Video: Family of Chimp Attack Victim Said She's in Denial
After a commercial break, and after a warning from Oprah to the audience that "it really is nothing you can prepare for," Winfrey removed Nash's hat.
Your picture is going to be broadcast all over the world, Oprah told her. "And that's fine?"
"Yes," Nash said. "I'm starting to get stronger and ready for everything."
Nash was attacked Feb. 16, outside the Stamford home of her longtime friend and employer, Sandra Herold. Herold had asked Nash to come help her shepherd the chimpanzee into her house.
Police shot and killed the animal after it attacked Nash. The doctor who treated Nash at Stamford Hospital, Dr. Kevin Miller, said on Winfrey's show that several chimpanzee teeth were "implanted" in Nash's bone. "I couldn't believe that this woman was awake and conscious when she came in," he said.
The story has drawn intense attention. Early reports focused on Herold, who considered the chimpanzee a son, dressed him and fed him lobster. Since then, much attention has focused on Nash, her medical condition, what it would be like living with such a severely damaged face.
Lawrence Williams, a professor of marketing at the University of Colorado at Boulder's Leeds School of Business, said people's interest in tragic stories may reflect a tendency to derive positive feelings from negative circumstances.
"It may be the case that people are generally attracted to intensely emotional, arousing experiences, and horrifying television moments provide that emotional jolt of arousal that would be difficult or dangerous to come by otherwise," he said. "Another possibility is that we are attracted not to the negative feelings themselves, but rather to the feeling of relief that results after we can convince ourselves that everything is OK."
Nash, who has been receiving treatment at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, said she does not remember the attack. And she's glad. "I want to get healthy," she told Winfrey. "I don't want to wake up with nightmares."
Bottom line people is the state failed her and is negligent, she deserves every penny outlined in her complaint and then some. By failing her the state failed all of us. Put yourself in her position and you would not be making comments as noted below, "I don't think the state should pay her a nickle" wrong.
joeyboy1 (11/13/2009, 3:33 PM )