Chimp took my face off,butI'mnotangry; APE ATTACK VICTIM SHOWS WORLD HER WOUNDS: Courage of maimed mum.

Byline: Paul Thompson

A MUM whose face was torn off by her friend's pet chimpanzee has revealed her horrific injuries on TV's Oprah Winfrey show.

Charla Nash, 56, lost her hands, nose, lips and eyelids when the 200lb ape attacked her as she tried to get him back into his cage. Her eyes were removed because of infection.

Doctors found some of the chimp's teeth embedded in Charla's bones, but she insists she isn't angry about the attack.

She said: "I don't even think about it.

There's no time for that anyways because I need to heal, not look backwards.

"I'm the same person. I just look different."

Charla has been in hospital since the attack in February but agreed to appear on Oprah and remove the veil she wears to cover her injuries.

Before she took the veil off, Oprah warned the audience: "This is really nothing you can prepare for."

Oprah asked Charla, who has a 17-year-old daughter: "Your picture is going to be broadcast all over the world. And that's fine?" Charla replied: "Yes. I'm starting to get stronger and ready for everything."

The 14-year-old chimp, called Travis, maimed Charla after his owner Sandra Herold asked her to help lure him into the cage at her home in Stamford, Connecticut.

Travis had known Charla for years but he still attacked her. Herold has claimed he was frightened by his victim's new haircut.

The ape savaged Charla for 12 minutes.

Herold tried to save her by stabbing Travis with a butcher's knife but the horror only ended when police shot him dead.

Traces of the anti-anxiety drug Xanax were found in the chimp's body, suggesting he had been doped to keep him quiet.

Charla is glad she doesn't remember the attack. She said: "I want to get healthy.

I don't want to wake up with nightmares."

The incident made massive headlines and Charla's hospital room is guarded round the clock to keep photographers away.

Doctors used a piece of her leg to build her a new nose and she has a hole in her face which she can use to eat through a straw.

Surgeons also managed to reattach one of Charla's thumbs.

Charla will never see again. She hopes to have a face transplant one day, but her doctors say they will not give her a hand transplant because of her blindness.

She doesn't know the full extent of her injuries, and doesn't want to. She wears her veil so she won't scare people - and to avoid insults.

Herold had kept Travis for years, treating him like a son and feeding him lobster.

But the ape grew more and more violent as he got older and Charla says she begged Herold repeatedly to get rid of him.

She said she saw Travis hurling a heavy desk around his cage and pounding the bars so violently his hands would bleed.

She added: "They had to weld the cage because he was starting to break out from hitting it so much.

"I always told Sandy,'You have to get rid of him, he's going to hurt somebody some day.' "She would say, 'I know, but it's hard.'" Charla said she had seen bruises Travis had left on Herold's body, but Herold would always say he had only been playing.

Charla's family are suing Herold on her behalf for pounds 30million. They claim she negligently failed to control a wild animal and accuse her of feeding the chimp medication that made him more violent.

Charla told Oprah: "I'd like to putacross to people that these exotic animals are very dangerous and they shouldn't be around."

CAPTION(S):

SO BRAVE: Charla told Oprah she's looking to the future. ABOVE: Charla as she was before ape destroyed her face. LEFT: Travis weighed 200lb and was constantly violent