If there are any silver linings in the horrible story of Charla Nash's awful mauling by an employer's pet chimpanzee, it's that she's alive, and she doesn't have to pay the hundreds of thousands of dollars for her extensive reconstructive surgery. The bill is being picked up by the Pentagon, even though Nash was never in the military, and it isn't entirely altruistic: The military hopes the techniques tried out on Nash will help them mend troops wounded in combat.
Nash tells The Associated Press that she's happy to be a "science project," especially if it will "do something good out of all of this bad." In the 2009 attack, the chimp ripped off her face and hands, leaving her next to dead. Doctors had to take out her eyes, and her body rejected a double hand transplant, but Nash got a face transplant and now lives by herself, blind, relying on the help of two assistants. Watch the AP's video of Nash's progress, and what her plight might accomplish, below. —Peter Weber
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