The 12-year-old girl who was scalped by a carnival ride has opened up about how she is living with the scars almost a year after the horrific accident.

Elizabeth Gilreath was riding the King's Crown in Omahaon May 7, when she accidentally fell, causing her curly red hair to become entangled in the carnival ride which ripped out a huge section of her scalp.

The youngster was rushed to hospital in critical condition, and spent months undergoing surgery after surgery.

Today, Elizabath is still undergoing treatment but refuses to be bowed by her scars.

 

+10

 

Elizabeth Gilreath who was scalped by a carnival ride has opened up about how she is living with the scars almost a year after the horrific accident

 

+10

 

Today, Elizabath may still undergoing treatment but refuses to be bowed by her scars

 

+10

 

The 12-year-old girl (pictured above before her accident) was riding the King's Crown in Omahaon May 7, when she accidentally fell, causing her curly red hair to become entangled in the carnival ride which ripped out a huge section of her scalp

'My scars don't define me. Nobody's scars should define them,' she told NBC News.

Her mother Virginia Cooksey said her 'brave' daughter had an incredible inner strength.

'She can get through anything,' she said. 'It's what keeps me going. It's what keeps me strong.'

Since the freak accident, Gilreath has received several skin grafts and was due for another surgery on Monday, Inside Edition reported

 

+10

 

 

Lulu (pictured) was videotaped by her friend right before the accident in Omaha, Nebraska. The friend said she stood up and screamed, 'Stop the ride' after the 11-year-old's hair got caught in the spinning mechanism

 

+10

 

The ride (above) was shut down after the horrific accident last May 

Doctors had also worried Gilreath would never regain her eyesight, but Cooksey said she could see out of both eyes, although the 12-year-old struggled to open her left eyelid, which was still swollen shut. 

Cooksey also said: 'We have our good days and we have our bad days. It's been very stressful, really stressful. It's going to be a long road,' WOWT reported. 

Elizabeth, who is also known as Lulu, says she is happy that her curly red hair is finally growing back - at least on one side of her head.

'I loved my hair. It was extremely rare,' she said.

Sadly, Elizabeth has recently returned to hospital after she caught a staph infection. But her mother knows that her positive little girl will not let it get her down.

However, she says she will never ride a carnival ride for as long as she lives.

 

+10

 

 

Elizabeth was in critical condition with a fractured skull, and spent months in hospital after the accident on May 7, 2016

 

+10

 

 

+10

 

 

Elizabeth 'Lulu' Gilreath looked at herself in the mirror for the first time,  two weeks after losing part of her scalp in a freak carnival ride accident

The King's Crown ride had just started on May 7 when Gilreath's red curls were caught in a spinning mechanism and witnesses said she began screaming.

'There's nothing we could do and so I stood up and I was like yelling, I was like, 'Stop the ride. Stop the freaking ride,' said Elizabeth's friend, Aushanay Allen, who took video of her pal just before her horrifying ordeal.

Surveillance video of the park show's the ride's conductor running off to get help, but one mom who was standing nearby says the ride was still moving despite the girl's screams.

'It was still spinning,' Jolene Cisneros told the WOWT. 'I had to stop it with my hands and turn it to the point where it was to the platform. I was like, 'you're going to be okay' and she's just like, 'Where's my pretty hair?'''

Cisneros says that Elizabeth was bleeding and then lost consciousness. The horrified mom said she thought the little girl might die right in front of her.  

 

+10

 

Elizabeth Gilreath, 12, (right, in June last year) appeared with her mother Virginia Cooksey (left) a month after the incident

'It went on for 5-10 minutes everybody told me, while it ripped and pulled my daughter around,' her father, Timothy Gilreath, told WOWT. 'She was tortured.' 

Lulu said the next thing she remembered was waking up in the hospital. 

'I told her, 'I feel like my head was smushed, Mom.' And she told me what happened,' Lulu told WOWT.

The Nebraska Department of Labor launched an investigation and released a statement saying they found nothing to indicate that 'any portion of the ride' failed or malfunctioned, or that the operator wasn't paying attention.

But Cooksey says she's not satisfied with the current laws in Nebraska, which call for carnival rides to be checked for safety only once a year.

'Our whole goal is to raise awareness for better safety laws and better rules and regulations for not only my children but for other children,' Cooksey said. 

Cooksey says she has several lawsuits pending, including one against the company that made the King's Crown ride and one against the State of Nebraska for negligence.