Burn-victim singer brings SA doctors to tears
GAUTENG specialist physician and pulmonologist Dr Hussein Pahad needed a handful of tissues after watching Nigerian plane-crash survivor Kechi Okwuchi get the nod from all four judges on America’s Got Talent last week.
Okwuchi’s rendition of Ed Sheeran’s Thinking Out Loud wowed judges Howie Mandel, Mel B, Heidi Klum and Simon Cowell. It also got a standing ovation from the audience on the US-based singing reality show.
Okwuchi was one of two survivors of the Sosoliso plane crash on December 10 2005. She boarded the doomed flight from Abuja to Port Harcourt in Nigeria along with about 60 classmates. They were heading home for Christmas from boarding school.
Okwuchi, who suffered third-degree burns to over 65% of her body, spent seven months at Johannesburg’s Milpark Hospital under the watchful eye of Pahad, plastic and reconstructive surgeon Dr Hugo Nel, and a team of doctors and nurses in the trauma centre and burns unit.
This week Pahad and Nel recalled Okwuchi’s “tremendous courage and tenacity” despite undergoing about 50 procedures.
“Kechi was a 16-year-old schoolgirl when she arrived on a mercy flight the day after the plane crash. She was in a critical condition. Even her eyelids were burnt and she later needed extensive reconstructive surgery. Kechi remained with us for more than seven months,” said Nel.
“It was just incredible to hear her sing and to see how far she has come since we last saw her. Many of our patients go on to rebuild their lives and it is a wonderful thing for us to see. The video of Kechi singing so beautifully will stay with me forever.
“Seeing her doing so well affirms our work and goes to show that there is always hope, even after such hardship and pain,” said Nel.
Said Pahad: “We are all rooting for our brave and remarkable Kechi. What an incredible comeback after suffering such trauma. We really hope that she will soon come and visit us and I will be writing to her asking for her to do just that.”
Okwuchi, who now lives in Houston, told the Sunday Times that music was her escape from the pain and itchy skin when she was covered from head to toe in bandages.
She has been singing since the age of seven, but more seriously from the age of 12. “Music kept me going in the hardest of times in my journey as a burn survivor. It was an escape for me. It helped me to steer my focus away from the pain and itching that came with the healing scars.”
She would love to return to South Africa and see the doctors and nurses who had taken care of her, she added.
Okwuchi described her time on stage for America’s Got Talent as nerveracking.
“I was incredibly nervous, despite people saying I didn’t look it. Standing on that red X in front of those four judges with thousands of eyes on me, I felt exposed and intimidated. But the audience was amazingly encouraging. They cheered as soon as I stepped onto the stage, and when I started singing. They were so receptive, which gave me more courage as the seconds passed,” said Okwuchi.
The economics graduate who is currently completing her MBA has made it to the next round of the show, in Las Vegas, where her singing will be rated by voting reaction to her performance.