Domestic Violence Survivor Shares Harrowing Story of How Her Husband Poured Chemicals Directly Into Her Eyes (Exclusive)

• A domestic violence survivor is taking to TikTok to share the harrowing story of how her former husband poured chemicals into her eye, temporarily blinding her and leading to multiple surgeries and the loss of one eye
• Heather Cornelius tells PEOPLE that her husband didn’t become physically violent until a decade into the marriage
• She’s using social media as a way to reach others impacted by marital or domestic violence

A domestic violence survivor is opening up to PEOPLE — and social media — about the devastating injuries she suffered during her marriage to an abuser, including losing the use of an eye when he poured chemicals on her face. Heather Cornelius has gone viral on TikTok for sharing her initial story and other moments from her abusive marriage, raising awareness around domestic violence.

Heather tells PEOPLE that her former husband seemed “easygoing and nurturing” when the two married in 2012. And while she says he didn’t show signs of violence for almost 10 years, her friends always felt he was controlling.

“My family didn’t like him, my sisters didn’t like him,” she says. “But for almost 10 years, I thought it was a good marriage.”

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After Heather joined the Coast Guard and began growing more independent, things began to shift.

“He began to get insecure,” she says, adding that, in November 2021, the two had a huge fight after he began asking if she had ever danced with anyone at parties in college. That culminated in him “bawling,” accusing her of being a liar “for years,” and ultimately, threatening divorce.

“He proceeded to say he didn’t want to be with me anymore: ‘I’m going to leave. And I’m taking the kids with me,’ ” she says. “I told him he can leave if he wants to but there’s no way that he’s ever taking my children.”

He would apologize and then, later, things would get bad again. He began to sexually assault Heather, even twice choking her unconscious during intercourse.

Roughly one year after that November 2021 fight, she left — but quickly realized it was nearly impossible to escape his anger.

“He had tracking apps on my phone, he could track my car via the GPS. I had no money, I had no one to call … I was in a helpless state. He started to call me and say, ‘I want you to come home.’ I told him no.”

Heather spent the night in a nearby public parking lot and, the next day — on Nov. 25, 2022 — her then-husband drove to meet her and try to convince her to come home.

“He was apologizing, and saying how sorry he was and he didn’t know what was wrong with him — but at the same time, he was threatening me, saying he would tell the police I tried to kill him and I’d lose access to the kids,” she says.

So, feeling alone and worried about being separated from her children, she went home with her husband.

“I went home, and he said I’m really glad we’re back here, and we’re going to make things right,” she says.

And then, he told her to lie on the floor.

“My back was turned and he told me, ‘Lay on the floor.’ I didn’t ask anything, I didn’t try to resist. At that point, when he told me to do something, I did it just to get it over with.”

She continues: “So I did what he said. When I looked up, I saw that he had blue gloves on and a white container. I tried to sit up, he pushed me back down. And he started pouring something in my right eye.”

Heather says it’s impossible to “describe the pain” that came next, once her husband began “rubbing in” the liquid he was pouring on her face

“I was begging for him to stop and screaming,” she remembers. “I don’t know how I made it through. I swear, God allowed me to leave my body for a moment to survive. He told me if I wasn’t quiet, he was going to kill me. So I went quiet, and then he started pouring it in my left eye. And then, he was done.”

Almost immediately, Heather’s husband began making a plan to ensure no one would know what happened, instructing her to go to the kitchen and pretend that she had been injured in an incident with oven cleaner.

“When I called out and did what he said [in the kitchen], my daughter came running,” she says. “He had left the room at that point so he came running, too. He led me into the shower and I let the cold water hit my face. I didn’t know at that point if anything was even left of my eye.”

Her husband, meanwhile, began “freaking out” standing outside the shower.

“He then took me to the hospital and, as we were getting out, he said ‘You know you did this to yourself, right?’ ”

Once at the hospital, Heather learned that the chemical poured on her face had essentially “melted” her eyelids off.

“What you see now, this is all just different skin grafts from other parts of my body. None of this is my original eyelids,” she says. “I can’t blink. I don’t have that ability now.”

From her local hospital in Topeka, Heather says she was airlifted to a level 1 trauma center in Kansas City and put into the ICU burn unit.

“They kept asking what happened and I knew they didn’t believe what I was telling them. The nurses, everyone kept trying to get me to explain the real story but I just thought, ‘What if he kills the kids and then himself?’ I couldn’t risk that.”

Heather spent a week in the hospital, during which time three of the five surgeries she’s had on her face were performed.

Then, she went back home.

“After that, he never physically abused me again, and he seemed to like that I was dependent on him,” she says. “I didn’t have eyesight for seven months in either eye and my right eye had to be surgically closed. It had scarred over — my retina is intact but I don’t have a cornea to see out of. So they have it covered so it stays protected.”

After she was blinded, she was put on convalescent leave by the Coast Guard.

And six months after she was released from the hospital, the doorbell rang.

“It was May 24, 2023,” she remembers. “The doorbell rang, and he went outside and didn’t come back … I could hear him yelling at the cops and he made a comment that someone from my command was walking up. Two people from my command said, ‘You can come with us voluntarily or involuntarily, but we need to question you.’ ”

Once in the car, Heather was notified that agents from Children’s Protective Services would be taking her children and Heather would be taken to Walter Reed Medical Center, for a psychiatric evaluation.

“They had found out through my work email,” she says. “I had written a draft email to my mother a couple months before it happened … saying things have gotten really bad, I’m scared something’s going to happen to me or to the children. Before I could send the email he turned off the Internet — but it was saved in my work email, which was the only thing he couldn’t access.”

While Heather’s children were placed with a foster family, Heather went to Walter Reed, where she admits she was initially “not very cooperative.”

“I was taken, I was blind, I didn’t know what was going on with my kids. I basically had Stockholm syndrome at the time,” she says.

But it was at Walter Reed that a psychologist offered Heather a blunt piece of advice: “We can’t keep you unless you want help. But if you go home — it might not be tomorrow, it might not be any time soon — he’s going to kill you, and your kids need you. Can we please help you?”

“All I said was, ‘Okay,’ ” she says.

Following her weeks-long inpatient stay at Walter Reed, Heather transferred to an inpatient and outpatient program in Texas, geared toward trauma and PTSD.

“I was [at Walter Reed] because they knew I needed to be kept safe, and had extreme trauma,” she says, adding that she spent “a few months” in trauma programs before transitioning to life on base. In January 2024, she was reunited with her children.

Her husband, meanwhile, had moved to Alaska as Heather says authorities worked behind the scenes to build a case against him.

“The last time I spoke to him was the morning I was taken,” she says.

On Nov. 1, 2023, police officers came to her home in Texas and notified her that he had died.

While she admits there were many emotions that she had to process as the result of his death, Heather says it allowed her to reconnect with people with whom she had lost touch.

“One of my friends later said, ‘I don’t want to upset you but I don’t think you ever had a good marriage — do you realize it has been over a decade since we went out to lunch alone?’ ” Heather recounts. “And she was right. He was always very controlling, but I went with the flow.”

She continues: “I try to describe it to people in this way: It’s like you’re walking in the woods, and you get lost. Everyone else can see what’s happening, and they’re trying to find a route to get you out But everything looks the same and no matter where you go, you stay lost. You can’t always see stuff when it’s so close to you.”

Now, though, Heather can see more clearly — at least, in the figurative sense.

“Besides what’s here,” she says, gesturing to her face, “it took me a long time to be okay.”

She continues: “I feel like I’m probably in the best head space that I’ve ever been in. I have a regular therapist, my kids are in therapy and they’re doing great in school. I bought a house and I did it on my own.”

“I’m accomplishing a lot of things that I never thought I would and I view what happened to me as part of the plan God has for me,” she adds. “I survived it for a purpose. I don’t look at myself and feel sorry for myself. I look forward to waking up every day.”

If you are experiencing domestic violence, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233, or go to thehotline.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.