Military hopes to learn from mauling case

Charla Nash never served in the military. She was horribly disfigured, not in combat, but in a 2009 attack by a rampaging chimpanzee. The Pentagon, though, is watching her recovery closely.

The U.S. military paid for Nash's full face transplant in 2011, as well as face transplants for a small group of other civilians. The agency is also underwriting Nash's follow-up treatment at a combined cost estimated in the hundreds of thousands of dollars in the hope that some of the things it learns can help young, seriously disfigured soldiers returning from war.

In the coming weeks, for example, Nash will take part in a military-funded experiment in which doctors at Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital will try to wean her off the anti-rejection drugs she has been taking since the transplant.

Nash jokes about sometimes feeling like a science project. But the 61-year-old daughter of an Air Force veteran said she gets real satisfaction out of letting the doctors use her for research, and she sees it as an opportunity to help wounded soldiers and "do something good out of all of this bad."

"They asked me, could they? I said, 'Yeah, I'd be thrilled to help out in any way I could,'" said Nash, a former Connecticut resident who now lives on her own in Boston with the help of part-time aides.

Nash lost her nose, lips, eyelids and hands when she was mauled by her employer's 200-pound pet chimpanzee in Stamford, Connecticut. Doctors also had to remove her eyes because of a disease transmitted by the chimp.

She later received new facial features taken from a dead woman. She also underwent a double hand transplant, but it failed when her body rejected the tissue.

Now blind, Nash spends most of her days listening to AM radio and books on tape -- lately, "War and Peace" -- in her modest, second-story apartment. She also exercises a couple of days a week with a trainer at a gym to build her strength and stay healthy.

About 35 full or partial face transplants have been performed worldwide since the first one was done in France in 2005. The Defense Department estimates 560 soldiers have suffered severe facial wounds in Iraq and Afghanistan. Of those, about 50 or 60 might be candidates for a face transplant.