Scarpinati knew about the nurse and what she has done for her from three powerful photos published by the hospital in their 1977 annual report.
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Amanda Scarpinati was treated for burns as a baby in 1977 and has always treasured the photos of herself in the nurse’s arms.
Scarpinati was 3-months-old when she rolled off a couch and was burned by a steam vaporizer on the floor. Melted mentholated ointment scalded her skin. She had to undergo several surgeries over the course of years and she was often shamed for her looks. “Growing up as a child, disfigured by the burns, I was bullied and picked on, tormented”, Amanda said. A nurse who started her career by forever impacting a young patient.
Scarpinati said the photo meant someone cared about her and for years, she hoped to one day meet Berger.
The attractive shots show Scarpinati at three months, her head wrapped in thick gauze, being cradled by the nurse in poses reminiscent of “Madonna and Child” paintings. But when she posted the photos on her Facebook page earlier this month seeking help with the search, she had her answer in a day.
Yet, this year she thought that social media may help her. Her Facebook post went viral and thousands of people shared it in less than 24 hours. Angela said the woman she was looking for was Susan Berger, and that she and her husband had moved to the Syracuse area years ago, reports the Daily Mail.
“I remember her”, Berger told the AP. She was very peaceful. Usually when babies come out of surgery they’re sleeping or crying. “I’d like a few more minutes.’ She was just so good and so trusting and wonderful for such a tiny baby”. It was unbelievable..
Berger told ABC News she was stunned and speechless to think that someone would have pondered her acts of kindness and saved the photo.
Both women were thrilled to see each other again Tuesday, sobbing and embracing as cameras clicked all around them in a medical center conference room.
“Oh my God, you’re real!”
Scarpinati said it felt like the excitement of Christmas. Berger also seems youthful and upbeat, with shoulder-length blonde hair, slightly shorter than how she wore it in 1977. “I am over the moon right now”.
“In a million years I would have never guessed this would grow to be as big as it is or that I would in fact be able to put a name to the face that I looked at for all these years”, Scarpinati wrote on Facebook.
“I think that picture says everything”.
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“I don’t know how many nurses would be lucky enough to have something like this happen, to have someone remember you all that time”, Ms Berger told AP.
