A woman who spent five weeks in a coma after being sexually assaulted, strangled and doused in bleach has spoken out about her ordeal.

30-year-old Lydia Tillman suffered through the nightmare in July this year and is now bravely rebuilding her life.

She met her perpetrator Travis Forbes at the 4th July fireworks in her town of Fort Collins, Colorado. She invited him to her home where the horrific incident took place.

In the early hours of July 5, it was revealed he stomped on her body, beat her head and shattered her jaw.

He also poured bleach on her body as an attempt to hide the evidence, and then lit her apartment on fire.

Despite the trauma, Ms Tillman managed to jump out of her second-floor apartment window and run into a waiting ambulance.

When paramedics asked her whether she knew the assailant, she told them: "No, no, no" before suffering a stroke that left her in a coma for over five weeks.

Now, four months after the attack she has found the courage to speak out. The acclaimed sommelier told US ABC News: "I'm tough."

Unbelievably, she forgives her attacker for what he did. In a written statement, she said: "It was my intention to find the strength in my heart to forgive Travis Forbes. I did. I felt extreme anger toward him, then I felt sad for him. He must be in so much extreme pain to so brutally hurt another human."

Although she had no idea who her attacker was, she would later find out police had been building a case against him for some time.

Police had previously questioned 31-year-old Forbes after Denver resident Kenia Monge went missing in April. He had been connected to the 19-year-old through a text message found on her phone.

He said he’d met Monge in a nightclub and had offered her a ride home in his van. He claimed, however, that she ran into someone else at a petrol station and had left with him.

Police found several holes in his story, including the fact that his fan smelt overwhelmingly of bleach and had recently laid new carpet however they couldn’t build a conclusive case against him.

When Denver Detective Nash Gurule heard about the attack on Lydia Tillman, he had a good idea of who the mystery attacker could be.

"I said, you know, 'It sounds like him…he likes bleach. This is his thing," he said.

Sure enough, when police tested the DNA under Tillman's finger nails, it came back as a match for Travis Forbes.

Police found him walking with another woman near the Colorado State University campus in July and arrested him.

He confessed to both the murder of Kenia Monge and the assault of Lydia Tillman under the proviso that he wouldn’t be charged under the death penalty. He told detectives that he had stored Monge’s body in a freezer before burying her in a field, then cleaned out his van with bleach.

He received a life sentence for Monge’s murder and a consecutive 48-year-term for Tillman’s assault.

Tillman prepared a written statement to be read out in court:"Travis Forbes, you caused me no harm. My spirit, my soul and my mind remain untouched. May you find peace in this life."

As she continues her recovery, she wears a bracelet encouraging herself to ‘Live your days inspired anew’. She is now able to run several miles at day and at the end of the year is hoping to climb one of Colorado’s mountains, Longs Peak.