By Mary Beth Sammons
Katie Piper was an aspiring model with a promising future, but all of that changed in one tragic instant when a man -- hired by her former boyfriend -- threw sulfuric acid in her face. "This is when my life changed completely, forever…" the now 26-year-old told ABC's 20/20 in an interview. "This is when I lost my beautiful face."
Raised in the small town of Andover, Hampshire in England, Piper moved to London when she was 22 years old to pursue a career in media. Within months she had jobs as a model and as a host on a shopping channel -- all stepping stones to her ultimate dream.
In March 2008, she told her family there was a new man in her life. "She texted... 'I've met a new guy. His name is Danny and I'm really happy,'" Piper's younger sister, Suzy, told 20/20.
The new man was 32-year-old Danny Lynch, a martial arts enthusiast who first contacted her through Facebook. But just weeks after the two first met, Lynch beat and raped her in a hotel, The Daily Mail reported. Piper didn't go to the police or tell anyone about the brutal incident for fear that he would kill her.
Lynch bombarded Piper with messages after the assault, and eventually, she agreed to go to an Internet café to read a message he had posted to her on Facebook. She was leaving the café when Stefan Sylvestre, hired by Lynch, approached her with a coffee cup and threw its contents on her face. The attack was caught on security cameras.
Watch Katie Piper talk about her attack in the video below. The story continues below the video.
PRODUCTION PLAYER! DO NOT DELETE.
"At first, I thought he's thrown coffee on me, because, he's in the street with a coffee mug," she told 20/20. "And then the pain was so bad I thought this guy's thrown a match at me...like visually I thought I must be a big orange fireball because, it's so painful and...so bad. I remember bits of my face were coming off and bits were coming away and, my clothes were all evaporating and I was panicking," she recalled. "I was banging on the windows of the shops and people were scared."
Piper's injuries were devastating and doctors resorted to revolutionary techniques to rebuild the foundations of her face. Doctors mixed pieces of a synthetic skin substitute called Matriderm with skin from Piper's back and layered the combination onto her face, reports 20/20. At home, she was forced to wear a plastic mask 23 hours a day to help her injuries heal. Additionally, her esophagus and stomach were so damaged from swallowing some of the acid, that she had to be fed through a tube. And along with her physical struggles, she had to contend with the psychological fallout. Piper was plagued by nightmares and was terrified to leave her parents' house.
Today, after extensive rehabilitation in a French facility for post-burn care and more than 30 operations, Piper is blind in one eye with disfiguring burns on her face, chest and arms, but is appearing and speaking in public to give hope to other burn victims. She's even created the Katie Piper Foundation to help support and create burn centers.
"I've got some terrible memories that will live with me forever," Piper told 20/20. "But slowly I'm replacing them with some fantastic memories that nobody can take away."
The full interview with Katie Piper on 20/20 airs Friday, January 8, 2010. Check your local listings for air time.
No comments:
Post a Comment