Katie Gee was walking through Stone Town, in Zanzibar, when a motorbike stopped beside her for half a second.
She was 18 and working as a volunteer at a school on the island. She was about to turn around and ask what they wanted when two men threw acid at her. According to her, the attacker smiled before doing it. At first, she thought it was a very hot cup of coffee. She ran to a restaurant she already knew because she remembered it had a shower, and there she saw herself in the mirror: her skin, a yellowish-green color, and her sweatshirt and trousers melting onto her body. Her right ear had been burned, the doctors said, like a potato chip.
The burns covered 35 % of her body. She spent two and a half months in the burns unit at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, received blood transfusions, had donor skin grafted onto her, and for three years went in and out of operating rooms until she had undergone 70 operations, some lasting 12 hours. She had to wear a plastic mask and a compression suit for 23 hours a day. Her ear was removed and reconstructed with cartilage from a rib and skin from her scalp. The surgeons wanted to shave her head to use that skin, but she begged them to let her keep her hair: it was the only thing she still liked about herself.
Today she is 31, lives with Michael, and shares her story on TikTok. She says that if someone stares at her, she stares right back. Those responsible for the attack were never caught.