Ariel

abcnews.go.com

Chrissy Steltz, a gunshot survivor, reveals her incredibly life-like facial prosthesis.

Chrissy Steltz remembers being "really beautiful," but these days all the gunshot survivor wants is "to be looked at as a plain jane."

Steltz, profiled on ABC's Nightline on Thursday, survived a horrific accident at the age of 16 which left her brutally disfigured.

But 11 years later, doctors have found a way to give her back her face.

A popular high school sophomore, Steltz's life took a tragic turn when two thirds of her face was destroyed by gunshot pellets, fired accidentally by friends playing around with a stolen gun at a party. She has been living for the last decade with over 40 pellets in her head, ABC reports.

Doctors say it was a miracle she survived, but the injury left Steltz with gaping holes where her eyes, eyesockets and nose should be, and she has worn a sleeping mask to hide the damage to her face ever since.

For the last decade, Steltz has lived as normal a life as possible. She met her longtime love, Geoffrey Dilger, through a local group for the blind, and the couple welcomed a son eight months ago.

But Steltz longed for her new baby to be able to see her face, even though she can't see him.

"I would like for him to be able to grow up with his mom not needing a sleep-shade," she told ABC in April.

Doctors responded by creating an incredibly lifelike prosthetic face, designed to look like exactly like Steltz at the time of her injury -- but aged to reflect the 11 years that have passed.

The prosthesis was created from a plastic mold of Steltz's face, which was layered with silicone and painted to look like human skin - complete with subtle eye make-up. Doctors even included eyelashes to give the face as realistic a look as possible.

Steltz's doctor said the procedure has restored Steltz to the person she was before her injury, saying, "She's whole again."

When she revealed her new face to her emotional family, Steltz was thrilled with their reactions. "I felt like everybody was seeing me again," she said. Her son Geoffrey has also embraced his mother's new look. "It's going really well," Steltz said. "He's not minding it one bit."

And despite the pain she has endured since her injury, Steltz says that if she had the chance to go back to that night and change what had happend, she wouldn't.

ABC correspondent Ashleigh Banfield reported on Thursday that when asked the question, Steltz responded, "No, I have everything I want. I would never want to lose any of this."