Rachael Ray: Rachael's Daytime Talkshow

The Girl Without a Face

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Chrissy Steltz was like any other high school girl with dreams of a bright future when an accidental shooting in March of 1999 changed her life. After being rushed to the hospital, the 16-year-old’s condition was considered a Level 1 trauma and doctors performed an almost impossible surgery just to preserve her life. The damage to her face was so bad that Chrissy lost her sight, her sense of smell, and most of her face between her upper teeth and eyebrows. Despite her devastating injuries, Chrissy felt lucky to be alive. “I felt like, I’m still here with us,” she recalls. “There’s no reason to feel sorry for me – all I really did was lose my sight and my superficial beauty - that was it to me.”

Chrissy underwent over twenty surgeries to stabilize her condition and to allow her to live her life as a functional blind person. To cover the hole in her face, Chrissy wore a sleep shade every day until she was 24 when doctors were able to fit her with a lifelike prosthetic face. Held in place by tiny magnets, Chrissy’s new face brought back a little bit of normalcy into her life, and gave the courageous woman a feeling an overwhelming feeling of “sheer happiness!”

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