'One time he was running around the yard and swinging off the trees of the house, and he jumped on my back and he pulled a big hunk of hair out of my head,' she says. One thing Charla does remember, though, is that Travis the chimp had always been scary. I saw a lady on Oprah who got her face ripped off by one and I was never the same. I don't want to wake up with nightmares.' Jack : I know it's a character flaw, but I'm terrified of all monkey. 'I don't want to remember, because I couldn't imagine what it was like,' she says.

Travis used his huge primate teeth to tear off Charla’s hands - before attacking her lips, eyelids, eyes, and. But the chimp - who weighed more than 200 pounds - viciously attacked her. 'I'd like to put across to people's minds that these exotic animals are very dangerous and they shouldn't be around.'Ĭharla says she can't remember anything from the day of the vicious attack, and she's glad for that. In 2009, the then 50-year-old went to visit her pal Sandra Herold in Stamford Connecticut, where she had raised her pet chimpanzee Travis for most of his life. 'I'm getting stronger and healthier,' Charla says. A harrowing 911 recording from the chimp's owner, pleading. On her 56th birthday, she opened up to Oprah. Many people know of Nash because her injuries were so horrific the angry chimp ripped off her face and gnawed her hands and forearm. A large portion of her scalp is missing, she only has one thumb, and doctors have created a hole in her face for her to get fluids through a straw.įor the past nine months, Charla's been recovering at the Cleveland Clinic. Against all odds, Charla survived the brutal attack though the chimp broke most of the bones in her face and ripped off her nose, lips, eyes and hands.

Oprah chimpanzee face rips off