Acid Attack Survivor, 22, Says Her Face 'Disintegrated,' Shares Recovery After 'Traumatic Experience' (Exclusive)

"For the first eight months after the assault, I didn't leave my home,” Juanita Jimenez tells PEOPLE

A New York City woman has undergone over a dozen surgeries and is trying to regain her confidence after suffering third-degree burns from a horrifying and life-changing acid attack.

At around 1 a.m. on December 2, 2022, Juanita Jimenez was on her way to work at Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn, where she is a primary care assistant. However, her routine commute on the subway turned disastrous when a woman, later identified as Rodlin Gravesande following her arrest, threw sulfuric acid on her in an unprovoked attack.

Jimenez, 22, first noticed her attacker causing a disturbance on the train while heading to work. After she arrived at her stop and started to leave the station, she noticed the woman get off the train behind her.

“She kind of followed me down the platform,” she tells PEOPLE. “She didn't say anything directly to me. I didn't say anything to her. But when we had gotten to the top of the steps at the train station, that's when she threw the acid at me and ran away before I could even open my eyes.”

“And being that it was one o'clock in the morning, I was the only one at that moment,” she adds. “So it just seemed like she targeted me. I was the only young lady there.”

Related: Child Recovering From Acid Attack at Playground Speaks Out: 'I Hope She Gets What She Deserves'

Jimenez didn’t know it was acid at the time of the attack, initially believing it was some sort of “poison” thrown on her.

“I just knew it hurt immediately. As soon as it touched my skin, it was painful,” she recalls, noting that the acid burned through every layer of the winter clothes she had on. “I had a mask on and it burned through my mask immediately and got on my face. I had a scarf on, it burned through the scarf. I had my coat on, it burned through the coat. Even my sweater burned, my pants, all of that. There were a bunch of holes in everything.”

The Harlem native quickly walked two blocks to the hospital where she told her co-workers about the incident.

As a member of the hospital staff, Jimenez already knew the “unknown substance protocol” and started rinsing herself off after arriving at the emergency room. She says she was “frantic” and in “excruciating pain” before doctors decided to transfer her to Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx for further care in the hospital’s burn unit.

Related: 14-Year-Old Girl Catches Fire, Suffers Third-Degree Burns After Using Nail Polish Remover Near a Candle (Exclusive)

Jimenez — who is also a student at Lehman College — suffered second- and third-degree burns on the left side of her face, leaving her nostril “disintegrated” and the blood vessel under her cheek completely damaged. She spent seven days in the burn ICU and underwent multiple debridement surgeries to remove the dead and infected skin.

Since leaving the hospital, Jimenez has had a long road to recovery, having 16 surgeries and counting.

As a model who did a lot of natural photoshoots without makeup, Jimenez says her “confidence and self-esteem did deteriorate a lot” after the attack left her with significant scars on her face. She recalls “crying every night” and admits the experience still takes a toll on her mental health because she can’t go anywhere without someone asking her about it and having to “relive the traumatic experience.”

“It's been up and down, a roller coaster of emotions  since the assault,” she explains. “There's days that it's like I'm sulking into a depression and stuff. Some days it is really hard to get out of bed. For the first eight months after the assault, I didn't leave my home.”

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“But thankfully I do go to therapy weekly,” she says, noting that she has PTSD and takes mental health very seriously. “I do take time to myself and I allow myself to feel my emotions and cry and be depressed, then come back out of it.”

After seeing the burns on her face, Jimenez says she knew immediately she wanted to find a doctor who could perform a reconstructive surgery and try to get her face as close to its original state as possible and restore her confidence.

Jimenez spent months researching and finally spoke to Dr. Carl Truesdale, a Los Angeles-based plastic surgeon who offered to perform the surgery pro bono after hearing her story.

Related: Beauty Vlogger and Acid Attack Survivor Speaks Out:'My Offenders Walk Free While I Have To Go Through Life Without a Face'

Last month, Jimenez traveled from New York to California and Truesdale performed a cervicofacial flap on her — the first of his planned reconstructive surgeries. Jimenez has since documented her journey on social media, hoping others who have gone through similar experiences can be optimistic about moving forward.

“I want other burn victims to know there is a chance to get your confidence back and face back. I wanted to just show the whole process of that,” she says. “And ever since, it's been a bunch of acid patients — and even burn patients in general — reaching out for advice on the surgery and ways that I stay positive.”

“My goal is to help people with mental health and knowing that even if you are suffering with trauma, you could still be positive,” she continues. “Some days are harder than others, but we could still push forward.”

Although she is still recovering from the surgery and has more procedures ahead, Jimenez tells PEOPLE that she’s extremely happy with the results already.

“Dr. Truesdale did an amazing job and I’m really thankful for that,” she says. “I’m finally getting my confidence back. Of course it's not 100% back because I still have more surgeries. But I’m definitely trying my best.”

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