Napalm girl’s recovery
The woman featured in an iconic Vietnam War photo gets pain relief after laser treatments.
The woman featured in an iconic Vietnam War photo finally gets pain relief after laser treatments.
THE E subject of the famous Vie etnam War photograph sh howing her fleeing a na apalm attack received th he last in a series of laser s kin treatments designed to o heal the scars that st tretch from her hairline, dow wn her back and up her lef ft arm.
In the 1972 Pulitzer P rize winning photo by APA photographer Nick Ut, t he nine-year-old runs downd a road naked, screaming, as napalm dropped by a South Vietnamese plane scorches her body. Phan Thi Kim Phuc, now 53, said she had resigned herself to live with the scars and pain her whole life, until she saw a TV programme about Dr Jill Waibel’sW laser treatments. She contacted Dr Wa aibel, who runs the Miam mi Dermatolo-gy and Laser r Institute in the United States, who offered to treat Phan Thi i free.
Success was not guaranteed. The practice of f using laser to treat scars is still new w, and the damage to Phan Thi’s s body was intense. The high hly flammable napalm had seare d and melted Phan Thi’s flesh and muscles to the bone. “It was so severe,” Dr Waibel said. “We don’t call it that anymore, but t (it was a) fourth-degree burn.”
Four decades later, the open wounds have long healed, but pain, itching and mobility issues remained.
Starting in September last year, Phan Thi flew to South Florida from her home in Canada for nine treatments over the months.
Dr Waibel used combinations of the more than 50 lasers in her practice on Phan Thi’s skin.
The searingly hot lasers boil the scarred skin away, leaving room for new skin and collagen to regenerate.
It will take a few more weeks for her skin to fully heal from her recent final treatment, but there’s already been improvement from the previous ones.
“I can see that it’s softer in some places,” Phan Thi said.
“It just looks so beautiful.” Her husband, Toan Bui Huy, said his wife used to be in constant pain, especially when the weather changed.
After the first few treatments, he was delighted to hear the pain had lessened.
But the best benefit of the treatment was unexpected.
“Before, sometimes things would touch me and I wouldn’t know what it was,” Phan Thi said. “Now, I can feel it.”
The regeneration process included the sensitive nerves near the surface of her skin, Dr Waibel explained.
“Now she can feel her little grandson’s hand on her arm,” she said. – Miami Herald/Tribune News Service