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Even after 40 years, napalm girl needs medical help
Highlights
As Kim Phuc ran for her life in the aftermath of a napalm attack – her face reflecting the terror and pain – the nine-year-old had become a living symbol of the atrocities of Vietnam War.
As Kim Phuc ran for her life in the aftermath of a napalm attack – her face reflecting the terror and pain – the nine-year-old had become a living symbol of the atrocities of Vietnam War.
It has been around forty years since then; the 52-year-old is now getting medical treatment for the wounds inflicted upon her as the South Vietnamese military accidentally dropped napalm on civilians in Trang Bang village near Saigon.
From her home in Canada, where she shifted with her husband in early 1990s, Mrs Phuc travelled to Miami to visit a dermatologist, a specialist in laser treatments for burn patients.
The treatment, hopes Dr Jill Waibel of Miami Dermatology and Laser Institute, will relieve her of the aches and pains caused by the burns. It would also soften the scarred skin spreading from her left hand to arm, up her neck to the hairline and all the way down of her back, he believes.
“So many years I thought that I have no more scars, no more pain when I’m in heaven. But now — heaven on earth for me!” Mrs Phuc said.
Along with Mrs Phuc were her husband Bui Huy Toan and Nick Ut: the AP photojournalist who had clicked the picture on June 8, 1972. The photo had won him Pulitzer.
Reminiscing the moment, Mr Ut said he remembered the young girl screaming she was feeling “too hot”. It was Mr Ut who gave her shelter in the AP van.
“I think I’m dying, too hot, too hot, I'm dying,” she cried while her skin peeled off. The scars on her body were almost four times as thick as normal skin. In June, Mrs Phuc had told CNN: “I always remember that horrible day that we ran from life to death.”
She was embarrassed by the photo at that time and found the publicity too difficult to handle. Her opinion gradually changed later: “I realized that if I couldn't escape that picture, I wanted to go back to work with that picture for peace. And that is my choice.”
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