Surgeons at famous Cleveland Clinic in Ohio find themselves in front of a difficult case, as they have to figure out how to solve the case of a woman who was disfigured by a chimpanzee on Monday.

Charla Nash was  hospitalized on Monday at Stamford Hospital where she underwent a seven-hour surgery after being attacked by a 14-year-old chimp, named Travis. Her face and hands were horribly disfigured. It required four teams of surgeons to stabilize her on Monday after the attack.

 

The accident occurred in the Stamford home of Nash’s friend Sandra Herold, the owner of the chimp. When Travis saw Nash, he jumped on her and began biting and mauling her, police reports read. The animal was shot to death. Doctors said Nash’s hair had been ripped out, her eyes injured and hands disfigured.

 

Dr. Daman Kralovic, medical director of the Cleveland Clinic Medical Transport Team, said: “I was impressed with how Dr. (Kevin) Miller (Nash's attending surgeon at Stamford Hospital) intubated and maintained her airway to give her a chance of survival. His team really did perform some heroic medicine.”

 

No comments were given on Nash’s course of treatment, but most probably she would suffer a face transplant.

 

To consider a face transplant, doctors must be sure Nash is medically stable, that alternatives have been carefully considered, and that she truly had given informed consent, because a transplant requires taking anti-rejection drugs lifelong, Dr. W. P. Andrew Lee, chief of plastic surgery at the University of Pittsburgh said.