Dominic Smithers
A young model who had her entire top lip bitten off in a horrific attack has shown off her new smile after undergoing six operations.
Brooklinn Khoury was making a name for herself as a social media influencer before she was set upon by a dog back in November 2020. This is her story:
The 23-year-old was hanging out with her cousin and her eight-year-old pit bull, Diesel, the day before she was set to star in a TV commercial.
After a day out, they all went back to Brooklinn's house to chill.
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But things took a dark turn when Diesel suddenly spun round and lunged at Brooklinn, sinking his teeth into her face and ripping off her top lip.
Speaking to Inside Edition about the terrifying incident, Brooklinn said: "He was hanging off of my mouth."
Following the attack, she took a photo of her face, which she finds it difficult to look at.
"You could see the fear in my eyes, ‘Oh my God, that’s what I look like'," she recalled.
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"How do you fix this? How do you fix this?’ I didn’t realise he had taken off my whole lip."
In the two years since the incident, Brooklinn has come a long way, documenting her progress online.
Though it's not been easy.
Brooklinn said: "Just having to look at myself in the mirror and having to tell myself and believe that what I am seeing is not the final product and loving myself regardless of how I look just from the inside out."
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But after undergoing half a dozen surgeries - some of which lasted around 20 hours - she now has her smile back.
"I think if you were to tell me a year ago today that I would look the way that I do, I wouldn’t believe you," she said.
Due to the nature of her injuries, it took Brooklinn over a year to find a doctor who was willing to take it on.
In November 2021, she found Dr. Nicholas Do, who offered to do his best to give Brooklinn her smile back.
He took skin and nerves from her arm, building a new fully functional upper lip.
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“In plastic surgery we can’t exactly recreate what was missing but if we can mimic it enough, it should almost be indistinguishable to the general public,” he said.
Brooklinn's journey isn't over yet, though, as she's set to undergo further surgery later this month.