Georgia woman doused with sulfuric acid by boyfriend fights for domestic-violence awareness, prevention

A beautiful single mother of two doused by industrial-strength drain cleaner. But was it just a tragic household accident or a malicious act too hideous and evil to comprehend?

It's one of the worst cases of domestic violence Crime Watch Daily has covered. One brave survivor wouldn't stop until her attacker was brought to justice.

And we want to warn you: Some of the images in the videos below are graphic.

After 13 agonizing reconstructive surgeries, Christy Sims opens up to Crime Watch Daily to tell her horrifying story of pain, loss and recovery.

"I lived in isolation for a whole year, it had nothing to do with vanity, it was social responsibility," said Sims. "I was horrible-looking."

Christy Sims and Andrew Fordham had a tumultuous relationship, one her mother Elaine Turner feared was doomed from the start.

"From the first minute I saw him, I looked at him and I said 'No, this is not the man for my baby,'" said Elaine. "I didn't like his demeanor. I didn't like the way he carried his self. He just didn't look like the man that would be for my daughter."

Christy and Andrew were on and off for several years.

"Very charming, very romantic," said Christy.

Did he ever express any type of violence verbally or physically?

"He had a very aggressive personality," said Christy. "He was emotionally abusive at times. In retrospect I didn't realize I was in that situation while I was in it. And we broke up for a long time, and he begged me to come back, and I went back. You know, it's the cycle of abuse. I was in it, I can admit it now. I'm woman enough to admit that I was in that situation."

A successful substance-abuse counselor, and raising two children on her own, Christy Sims had just completed coursework to receive her master's degree.

"I was 42 years old but I went back to get a graduate degree, I finished in two years and I'm the first woman in my family to go to college, so you know I didn't want to walk, 'cause you know all these young kids, they're walking and I'm 42 years old, you know, going back to school, but my mom was like 'No, you're gonna walk, this is huge, you're gonna have a party, we're gonna have a graduation,'" said Christy.

She also felt it was time to move on from Andrew.

"She was beginning to see him as being a little too possessive and a little, you know, over the top," said Henry County, Georgia District Attorney Sandi Rivers.

"She did tell me that she was contemplating on leaving him, and I did say 'Well Christy, just be careful, you know, you can't just break relationships off just like that, be very, very, very careful," said Elaine Turner, Christy's mother. "She was confident not thinking that anything would happen. But I still had this gut feeling you know, and I had this prayer in my heart for my child."

Christy says she made up her mind to end the relationship in April 2013.

"That was the last weekend that I knew in my heart that we were gonna be together, and so there was this resolve that I had that I was finally ending that relationship and that I was going to be moving forward, and so I had a lot of peace about it," said Christy. "And I think he could feel that, 'You know, this is my last weekend with her.'"

That Sunday afternoon while hanging out at Christy's home near Atlanta, Andrew Fordham called to her from the bathroom.

"He says, 'Babe I've wasted a little water on the floor, bring me a towel,' and I said OK, grabbed the towel and I just start walking down the hallway," said Christy. "So I'm walking down the hallway and I see him literally standing there, only wearing boxers, no shoes, no gloves, no shirt, nothing, and he's holding a yellow bowl from my kitchen, which made no sense to me. So I never even went into the bathroom, I stopped, and right outside the bathroom I was just holding a towel. I'm like, 'What are you doing,' like, 'Why do you have a bowl in the bathroom?'

"He's slipping and sliding, holding the bowl with two hands. My assumption was that it was water," said Christy. "Now, even in that moment I still don't feel danger, like I knew something was wrong but I still didn't know that what's in that bowl is gonna change your life forever, so I'm just standing there and I'm just holding the towel. Before I could even move he had taken the bowl with two hands and doused it directly upward into my face and into my eyes."

"The first thing that started to burn, I didn't feel anything burning but my eyeballs. My eyes started to burn," said Christy. "And he's just standing behind me, my last image is of him standing behind me just watching me, watching me suffer. He never said anything, even from the point that I came down that hallway, he never said a word. He just looked at me. And then everything started to burn. Then I said 'Call 911.' He kept standing there. 'Call 911.'"

Paramedics arrive, but the worst for Christy Sims is yet to come.

This brave woman now steps out from behind the mask to show her face on Crime Watch Daily.

We want to warn you: Some of the images in this story are hard to watch.

Christy Sims, an attractive single mother of two, has just been doused with a bowl of blistering sulfuric acid -- a so-called "accident" by her boyfriend Andrew Fordham. Her agonizing screams were captured on his call to 911.

Paramedics arrive to find Christy blinded, her flesh being eaten away by the corrosive drain cleaner.

"At that moment the paramedics arrived, it was the most torrential rainfall in all of 2013, and it was the rainfall that they used to rinse me off," said Christy. "I was closer to the door, I was too far away from anything else, and so they took me outside, stripped me down, took all of my clothes off. It was the rainwater that that saved my life, because the acid came within 2 centimeters of my heart."

To spare her from unimaginable pain, Christy was placed in a medically induced coma for two months.

"So I woke up blind, unable to walk, unable to move my arms because the acid affected the nerves in my arms," said Christy. "I had to have intense occupational and physical therapy for months before I could even walk, or use my arms, bathe myself, and slowly, over time, my eyesight did come back."

At first, police are led to believe Fordham's account of what happened -- that he spilled the drain cleaner by accident.

When Christy opened her eyes and was coming to terms with what had happened, Andrew Fordham was not in jail.

"He said it was an accident, and when they questioned me within one hour of having my body burned to the 3rd and 4th degree, 20 percent of my body, they questioned me, and they said that I said it was an accident. I have no memory of ever being questioned," said Christy. "I was in shock."

But prosecutor Sandi Rivers is convinced this was no accident.

Rivers begins by taking another listen to the 911 call and the instructions from Poison Control.

"To me the smoking gun was when I heard the 911 call, the dispatcher telling him to put water on her, because if this water had been put on her quickly, immediately, it would have negated the injuries," said Rivers.

On the 911 call, as paramedics arrived, Christy can be heard saying: "I told him to pour water on me."

Why is this so damning? Because Fordham never even attempted to wash off the acid.

"He said to her, 'Just sit there. Just sit there,'" said Elaine Turner, Christy's mother.

"When he put the phone down and came back to me, I said 'What did they say? Why is it burning so bad, what is this?'" said Christy. "He said, 'Babe, they said if I put water it's gonna ignite the chemicals, so just sit here until the ambulance gets here.' And I sat there for about 13 minutes and it just burned through my skin."

"If you spend a lot of time looking at domestic violence cases, there is the classic phenomenon of 'If I can't have you nobody else will,' and I think that he wanted to make her unattractive to anybody but him," said Sandi Rivers.

Rivers is determined to prosecute Andrew Fordham, but she'll need Christy's help to do it. Christy shows incredible courage, revealing to the entire world the horror inflicted upon her by the man who claimed he loved her.

"He could have rinsed me off, and just him rinsing me off I would have burned, probably to the 2nd degree, but I would not have had to have my entire face replaced. I would have some resemblance of who I used to be, and I don't have that anymore," said Christy.

Christy summons the strength to face Fordham in court, testifying to his unspeakable cruelty.

Despite his claims of innocence to the bitter end, Andrew Fordham was found guilty and sentenced to 20 years behind bars.

In the meantime, Christy Sims has endured more than a dozen painful reconstructive surgeries.

"I had a social responsibility. You don't go out in public looking the way I was looking. My own daughter was afraid of me. So children could not even be around me," said Christy.

But now Christy has found the strength to turn her tragic story into a shining example of hope, faith and courage, penning a book called Yellow Tulips on a Cloudy Day.

"She's funny, she's fun and she's not been victimized by this. She's stronger because of this," said Sandi Rivers. "It has changed her life but I don't think it will define her life."

And through her Christy Sims Foundation, she hopes to reach potential victims of domestic violence before it's too late.

"I travel, I go into middle schools and high schools, I tell my story and I give all the warning signs, and instead of focusing on helping people after the fact, I try to prevent it," said Christy.

"Christy is still shining, she's still shining, she's still courageous," said Christy's mother Elaine. "I'm so proud of her about the fact that she's stepping out, speaking to people and crowds and all over the world, you know, and she's not ever gonna give up, she's gonna always press forward, 'cause that's who Christy is."

"No matter how bad stuff is, like even being grateful for this little dimple right here, you just find a way to be grateful, and that's how you survive. You find something positive in the negative," said Christy.

Christy reiterates her most important message for those who are currently dealing with domestic violence: "Don't ever give up. Tell your story until someone listens." It could save your life.