A model blinded in one eye after she was savagely beaten by her then-boyfriend was saved by a selfie.
Martha Dolak, 31, was held hostage and battered to a pulp during the 21-hour ordeal.
But she secretly took a photo of her horrific injuries and sent it to a friend who raised the alarm.
Dolak suffered face and skull fractures, a bleed on the brain plus permanent damage to her optical nerves. She feared she would die.
Her ex-boyfriend Michael Goodwin, 30, has now been jailed for four years and three months.
Dolak has courageously spoken out about her ordeal to help raise awareness of domestic violence.
She and Goodwin, a construction worker, had been together for 18 months but she grew sick of his abusive behavior.
He locked her in his apartment in South London after finding a text from her friend urging her to leave him.
Dolak told The Sun: “When he saw the text message he was livid. I was terrified so I tried to get my things and go.”
“He told me I couldn’t leave and locked both the doors.”
“I went to the window to see if I could jump out safely but suddenly I felt an excruciating pain and remember nothing else.”
When she regained consciousness, she was in agony and could hardly move. Goodwin, seen posing with a gun against his head in an online pic, was still in the apartment, so Dolak took the selfie.
She added: “I woke up in bed. I knew he must have put me there but I couldn’t move. I couldn’t feel my legs and I had the most painful headache.”
“I couldn’t lift my head up at all. My eye wouldn’t open and my face felt thick with dry blood.”
Dolak said she had decided to take a selfie to see the damage to her face.
She said: “I wanted to see what was wrong with me. I was horrified at what I saw.”
“I sent the picture to my friend so that she would get help. It was only afterward that I realized he had kicked me in the head.”
“My friend told my parents straightaway, and my dad, who doesn’t speak very good English, went to the police station with the text.”
“I could have died if left without medical attention for much longer.”
Cops began hunting Goodwin, who had left the apartment by then.
He returned and took Dolak to a hospital. He ordered her to say she fell down some stairs, but she later told cops what happened.
And the selfie helped convict the thug.
He was found guilty of assault occasioning actual bodily harm, assault by beating and breaching a restraining order.
Dolak now hopes her story will help other women come forward.
She said: “After the attack, people would say to me, ‘He’s an animal’ — but he is not, he is a monster.”
“No matter how educated you are, no matter how strong you look, it can happen to anyone.”
“I thought because I’m smart, have a degree, am independent and see myself as a feminist, that I would be able to see it happening.”
“But domestic violence does not choose someone based on those things.”
Sian Hawkins of Women’s Aid said Dolak was “incredibly brave” to speak out.