Kim Phuc Phan Thai Photo, Girl in Iconic Vietnam War Photo Brings Message of Hope
Kim Phuc Phan Thai Photo, Girl in Iconic Vietnam War Photo Brings Message of Hope
Kim Phuc Phan Thai in Iconic Vietnam War Photo Brings Message of Hope
THURSDAY, Sept. 10 (HealthDay News) -- It's a photo that many credit with helping to end the Vietnam War: A 9-year-old girl, naked and in obvious pain, runs through a street after suffering napalm burns over much of her body.
What the iconic photo -- snapped in 1972 by Associated Press photographer Nick Ut -- doesn't show is the girl's struggle to survive and thrive in the aftermath of that day.
Now 46 years old, Kim Phuc Phan Thai (Kim Phuc to most) spoke recently at a conference of burn survivors and burn care specialists in New York City on the physical and psychological struggle that she went through over the ensuing decades.
"Sixty-five percent of my body got burned," she said in an interview with HealthDay. The third-degree burns left her face untouched but sheared off every layer of skin on her back and left arm, leaving a legacy of permanent scars and recurring pain.
"I should be dead," Phuc said. "I got burned so deep I had to do skin grafts -- mostly from under my leg -- from the 35 percent of my skin that was OK. And from the beginning to the end, including physical therapy, I was in the burn unit in Saigon for about 14 months. And I had 17 operations. But I was spared," she added.
"So now I think, 'I cannot change something that happened to me already. But I can change the meaning."
Healthy eating, exercise and an upbeat attitude help her focus away from the pain when it does come, however. And Phuc said that even the pain has its reward.
"The pain I consider as my protection. It humbles me, and helps me to never take my life for granted," she said. "And to share my story."
More information
For additional information and resources on burn injuries and burn care, visit the Phoenix Society for Burn Survivors.
SOURCES: Kim Phuc Phan Thai, burn survivor, conference speaker; Roger Yurt, M.D., director, Hearst Burn Center, New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, New York City; Phoenix Society's World Burn Congress for Burn
Survivors, Aug. 26-29, 2009, New York City.kim phuc phan thai photo, kim phuc photo, kim phuc, vietnam war pictures, nick ut , napalm, audrina patridge, napalm girl photo, nick ut, agent orange
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