Horrific moment model realized her top lip had been torn off by pit bull

A Californian model once featured in Vogue has opened up about the terrifying moment a pit bull bit off her upper lip.

Brooklinn Khoury, 24, said she still doesn’t know what prompted the dog to attack her in November 2020.

The model and skateboarder was visiting her cousin in Arizona. At the time, her biggest concern was a pimple on her upper lip that she removed from selfies she sent to friends.

But that all changed when the pit bull – a dog she had known for years – pounced on her face and clamped its sharp teeth on her upper lip, pinning her down for almost a minute.

When the 200-pound dog finally opened its mouth, Khoury said she “saw something fly into the wall and then fall to the ground.”

‘It wasn’t really noticeable that that was my lip. I couldn’t process that,” Khoury said CBS.

For several minutes she didn’t realize the extent of her injuries, and she opened her phone’s selfie camera to confirm that she only had a deep cut.

But instead she discovered that “everything from the nose down was completely ripped off.”

The model was rushed to a hospital, where she had to sit alone for several hours due to coronavirus restrictions.

During this time, she desperately searched social media to see if there were other people affected by her injury, but she did so to no avail.

“I couldn’t find anyone who didn’t have an upper lip who shared a story or shared a problem. I don’t want anyone to feel how I felt at that moment, which was just alone and very isolated.

“I grabbed my phone and started recording everything.”

She took photos of her serious injury and documented the hours she spent in the hospital.

Khoury hoped that the plastic surgeon would be able to reattach her upper lip, but she soon discovered that was impossible.

Instead, the doctor sewed the wound closed and turned the skin from inside her mouth outward to seal the wound.

After the surgery was completed, Khoury was left without an upper lip and with deep scars. Even when her mouth was closed, her teeth remained visible.

Although her new look was shocking, she decided to share photos of herself on social media in an effort to share her story.

‘I really wanted to share my story. I felt so alone in the hospital… I needed a community of difference in a world of perfection.

“So I made sure I was super vulnerable and that it was a safe place to post what I wanted to post. I just wanted someone else, if they were going through it, to be able to relate.”

Unwilling to wear her lips for the rest of her life, Khoury later decided to find someone who could restore her smile.

She searched for a doctor for more than a year before she finally found someone who was suitable.

The doctor took a piece of skin from her wrist and transplanted it onto her upper lip in a procedure that cost her a whopping $400,000.

She described the process as ‘debulking, shaping and creating.’

Her doctor described the surgeries as an “art project” as he “shaped and moved” the piece around her face to “sculpt the skin.”

Brooklinn admitted that the surgery helped her “eating process” and her “communication.”

Not only did she begin to heal physically, but also emotionally, thanks to the support in her life from her loved ones.

The response she received after candidly sharing her journey online has “helped so much” as she discovered she’s “not the only one going through something similar.”

On her Instagram, Khoury has created a safe space for people like her to share similar stories about reconstructive surgeries. It’s the kind of community she desperately sought while waiting in the hospital after the attack.

“I can’t even believe how many people have shared their stories with me. It was such a beautiful experience. I felt so alone, and now I have such a wonderful community of people.

“At first I felt so alone, and now there are so many people sharing their stories.”