The victim of a horrifying firebomb attack has told how coming close to death gave her the wake up call she needed to turn her life around.

Former addict Dovile Krivickaite has been clean since drug dealer Mohammed Kosar doused her in petrol and set fire to her with a lighter, leaving the 24-year-old for dead in an alley in Rosedale Road, Forest Gate.

“Before I wanted to stop but I didn’t have enough energy to do it by myself,” Dovile explained. “Now I want to open a charity to help people who are drug users and tell them how they can stop too.”

Earlier this month her attacker was sentenced to 16 years in prison for attempted murder – a verdict Dovile says she is happy with.

Despite throwing herself to the floor to fan the flames following the incident on October 19 last year, she has been left with 24 percent burns along the entire left side of her body which will require treatment for the rest of her life

Dovile also temporarily lost her voice as a result of her urgent pleas for help during the vicious attack.

“I remember that I was shouting and screaming a lot,” she said. “It was the most horrible pain. It happened so quickly that it only began to sink in when I arrived at the hospital.

“I looked at the skin on my hands and it was just peeling off.”

Dovile, who admits to taking drugs for more than a decade, said she planned to buy heroin and crack cocaine on the night Kosar tried to kill her.

She has now been left with mobility issues and is afraid of the dark but hopes to have cosmetic surgery to restore her looks.

“I find it difficult to move my left arm and my little finger is not straight,” Dovile said. “I can’t move that hand as I did before.”

Above all, she is grateful to the police for catching her attacker and giving her a second chance at life. “If it wasn’t for them I don’t know who would have helped me,” she said.