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Cleveland, Ohio

The morning after Charla Nash was attacked by the chimpanzee her family gathered at the hospital, anxiously awaiting an update on her condition. The facial injuries were acute the nose, lips, eyelids and all of her skin had been ripped off. A dozen specialists worked to try to save what they could of Charla's face.

Dr Kevin Miller "It was kind of like a jigsaw puzzle trying to put back the pieces where they were supposed to be and while we were doing that we were removing the impacted chimpanzee teeth that were impacted in her bone. We had to pull out clumps of hair that were impaled on her face."

But, it wasn't just her face, her hands had also been ripped to shreds.

Dr Kevin Miller "I'd never seen anything like this, all her bones and tendons had been completely removed we were able to see the thumb on the right hand, but that was the only digit that had the bone and tendons and ligaments intact."

After more than eight hours of surgery, performed by more than a dozen doctors, Charla was in critical condition, but stable enough to enter the intensive care unit.

As the family absorbed the cold reality of Charla's injuries, in relative privacy, the attack on Charla Nash was rapidly becoming a major news story. Reports revealed that Travis had been given the anti-anxiety drug Xanax by his owner, Sandra Herold, prior to the attack. In addition, disturbing new details emerged about the ticking time-bomb the animal had become in recent years.

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Stephen Ross, primatologist "When I heard that Travis had attacked someone, I was completely unsurprised. For most people who own chimps as pets the problems start happening about six or seven years old. In this case though, Travis was still with his owner at 14 years old. As a 14-year-old Travis would have almost reached full size and strength and would have the strength of maybe five or six adult human beings, athletes."

Journalists descended on Sandra Herold's house. In an interview with one reporter she is distraught over how the tragic attack both maimed her friend and killed her beloveds chimp.

Sandra Herold "What more could I say? My feelings, my love for her when I would stab something I'd raised as my son, to save her life. I mean, can I say any more? I loved him, but I loved her to!"

By the third day, after the attack Charla's chances of survival improved slightly. But, remained uncertain. Acknowledging the complexity of Charla's injuries Dr Miller realised she needed a medical centre with more sophisticated resources. He called the Cleveland clinic, home to renowned facial reconstruction surgeon Daniel Alam.

Daniel Alam "Over the last 10 years, I've done about 500 complex facial reconstructive cases."

Four days after the attack, Charla was transferred there in an induced coma and seen by Dr Alam.

Dr Alam "As a physician, it was probably the first time in my life I looked at the patient and I thought, if at some point she had passed away during this, she might have been better off."

Before doctors in Cleveland could figure out how to reconstruct Charla's face, they first had to clean out the parts of the chimpanzee that still remained.

Dr Alam "It's unusual, in that sense, to have an animal injury, where pieces of the animals hair and tissue had been embedded in your body for so long. All the bacteria in that, basically grow and can create this incredible stench like you'd have at a zoo. It wasn't until a few days after the surgery where that kind of zoo-like, animal-like odour finally disappeared from the wound."

For the next four weeks, Charla remained in a coma-like state. It wasn't until days before her twin-brother Mike arrived in Cleveland that she began to climb out of the fog.

Mike Nash "The first time I saw Charla at Cleveland clinic, was almost comical because they were so scared of my reaction to Charla's face that they bandaged her totally and put dark glasses on and she looked like the invisible man. And she knew who I was instinctively… Because I asked her who is the oldest and she goes you are, I said how much, two minutes. The next day they had the bandages off, that was a shock, it looked like something from a horror show. I knew Charla was there but a lot of her wasn't."

Three months after the attack, Charla was no longer at risk of losing her life. She began to regain her strength. But, just as she re-emerged physically, she received a very painful shock.

Mike Nash "One day, she's awake, and an optometrist came in and that's when he said we're going to have to remove the eyes."

Charla couldn't see her own disfigurement but when her bandages were finally taken off, the gruesome reality was revealed. For Charla, a visit from Briana, three months after the attack, proved to be a turning point in accepting her appearance.

Dr Daniel Alam "The biggest moment was when Briana came to visit, I was standing outside the patient room and looking in and it was the first time I actually believed that this is a person that's going to recover from this. The next hurdle was getting Charla to be a functioning human being, who could do a normal activities from day-to-day."

During Charla's 15 month stay in Cleveland Dr Alam performed a number of reconstructive surgeries which included grafting skin from her leg and cartilage from her ribs on her face. Despite the improvements, Charla had no sense of smell and was only able to consume food through a straw.

Charla slowly began to regain her strength and relearn the basics of living in an entirely new way. In November 2009, she agreed to sit down for a nationally televised interview but wore a veil to conceal her face.

Meredith Vieira NBC Today, "I think that there are a lot of people who feel that they could not overcome something like this. You don't know until you there, do you?"

Charla Nash "I know I always had an attitude that whatever came my way, you know, I'd overcome it. I wouldn't let it all the way back."

Seeing the joint interview with both Charla and Briana convinced Dr Alam that Charla needed a new face.

Dr Alam "Briana never looked at Charla's face. She would listen to her, she would hold her hand. But, there is really a sort of disconnect. And, seeing that separation in the way that Briana interacted with her, was tragic. It became clear to me that until Charla had a face, there was something missing, in the sense to the surgeon, it's a sense of failure."