Dana Vulin was burned alive in her Perth apartment by Natalie Dimitrovska, who believed the 30-year-old had been sleeping with her estranged husband.
She received burns to more than 60 per cent of her body, but says the years she spent in recovery were intensely more painful than her initial injuries.
Speaking to The Project on Tuesday night, Ms Vulin shared the excruciating process she went through to heal her body, including sleeping on a crucifix and enduring multiple skin grafts.
Dana Vulin was burnt alive in 2012 by a stranger who believed she had been sleeping with her husband
The 30-year-old told The Project her recovery had been more excruciating than the initial burns
Ms Vulin slept on a crucifix (pictured) for two and a half years while the burns to more than 60 per cent of her body healed
‘There is no amount of anything that you know that can prepare you for this,’ she told the show’s hosts.
‘I slept sitting on a crucifix for two half years, with wrist splints, arm splints, elbow splints, palm splints, a mouth brace, a neck brace,’ she said, adding that during the day she had two sets of braces on each arm to help with her movement.
Ms Vulin said she would endure painful physio sessions up to three times a day in an attempt to regain her ability to move, and was still undergoing surgeries to help heal her grievous injuries.
The 30-year-old wore a compression face mask for two years and eight months, and a garment for the rest of her body for three years,
She says she endured a multitude of skin grafts to regain her looks, and that her facial skin had come from her scalp
Ms Vulin’s attacker, Natalie Dimitrovska, was sentenced to 17 years behind bars for her actions
Though doctors told her she would ‘never see the old Dana again’, Ms Vulin’s hard work has proved them wrong
She went through five sets of braces and two jaw expanders, as she began to heal. Any skin that wasn’t damaged was used for skin grafts as doctors tried to get the Perth woman looking good as new.
‘They’ve taken my right leg for skin four and a half full times, my left leg four times,’ she said.
‘My groin is my neck, my hips and armpit and they shaved my entire skull to graft my entire face.’
Despite her intense injuries and excruciating recovery, Ms Vulin is still able to smile as she revisits her lengthy stint in hospital.
‘Literally modern day Frankenstein,’ she joked.
She says she was wearing a compression facial mask to help her skin heal for two years and eight months
Grafts from her neck, my hips and armpit made up her groin, while doctors shaved her entire skull to graft her entire face
Ms Vulin underwent physiotherapy three times a day to regain movement in her limbs
She told Daily Mail Australia in September doctors had warned her at first she should ‘never expect to look like Dana again’.
‘No one thought it was physically possible [to recover so much],’ she said.
But now she says she is a ‘walking advertisement to what modern medicine can do’.
Despite her serious and life-changing injuries, Ms Vulin looks every bit the blonde bombshell she did before she was set alight.
Her incredible recovery should be credited to more than just her doctors though – Ms Vulin said her regained appearance is also the result of a lot of her own hard work.
‘I’ve worked day and night. I’ve gone above and beyond,’ she said, explaining she’d tried an array of extra treatments. ‘You’ve got to do the work yourself.’
‘I’ve empowered myself,’ she went on. ‘I went and read and learned everything I could about burns and the skin’s system and layers. I’ve tried everything.’
Dana Vulin has released a book about her ordeal titled ‘Worth Fighting For’