Face transplant patient who was attacked by chimpanzee is back in hospital after body rejects new tissue

An American women who underwent a pioneering face transplant after being mauled by chimpanzee has been taken back into hospital after her body began rejecting the tissue. Charla Nash was attacked by a neighbour’s pet ape in Stamford, Connecticut in February 2009, leaving her severely disfigured after it
ripped off her nose, lips, eyelids.
She also had her hands torn from her arms after trying to help lure the 200lb chimp called Travis back into her home. Two years later her face was reconstructed after undergoing a gruelling operation in Boston.
But now the 66-year-old has been forced to return to hospital following complications with her transplant.
 
Carla Nash before the incident
She had agreed to take part in a US military-funded experiment to see if she could be brought off the anti-rejection drugs she had been taking since her operation.
However her doctors at Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital have now put her back on her original medication in the hopes of reversing the rejection.

Following her transplant she said: "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."
The attack also left Nash blind after she had to have her eyes removed due to a disease transmitted by the chimp.
Previously she had worked as an actor and appeared in commercials for Coca Cola.
Nash later reached a settlement with the estate of the chimp's owner, Sandra Herold, who died in 2010. -Mirror