Chrissy Steltz was 16 when an accidental shotgun blast took her eyes, nose, and much of the center of her face.
It was March 1999, and she was at a party at her home in Oregon when someone found a gun under the couch and started playing with it. She was hospitalized for six weeks.
She was left blind, learned braille and how to get around with a cane, and for eleven years covered her injuries with a black sleep mask.
Her son was born in July 2009, and then her wish changed: she wanted him to grow up knowing his mom with a normal-looking face. In 2010, when she was 27, a medical team made her a silicone prosthesis based on photos of her at 16, aged to reflect her current age, with blue eyes the same shade as her original ones.
It attaches with small magnets to implants in the bones of her face.
“I felt like everyone could see me again”, she said. The prosthesis did not restore her sight, but it did give her the ability to go out without the mask.
