Napalm girl Kim Phuc, 52, now a Canadian citizen living outside Toronto, has started going to the Miami Dermatology and Laser Institute for laser treatment on scar tissue marring her skin.
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Doctors hope the treatment, which will take nine months, will smooth and soften the scar tissue and relieve her pain. “But now-heaven on earth for me”.
More than 40 years later she has deep aches and pain from the scarring which stretches from her left hand up her arm, up her neck to her hairline and down most of her back.
He put her in the AP van where she crouched on the floor, her burnt skin raw and peeling off her body as she sobbed, “I think I’m dying, too hot, too hot, I’m dying”.
What Kim did not know at the time, though, was that the images of her severe burns would also sear themselves onto the world’s collective conscience – through a black and white Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph and color video footage that for decades afterward stood as garish reminders of how horrifying war can be.
Phuc suffered serious burns over a third of her body; at that time, most people who sustained such injuries over 10 percent of their bodies died, Waibel says.
Each treatment typically costs $1,500 to $2,000, but Ms Waibel offered to donate her services when Ms Phuc contacted her for a consultation. The lasers being used were originally created to smooth out eye wrinkles, heating the skin to boiling point to vaporize scar tissue. While Phuc loved to climb trees “like a monkey” and toss guava fruits down to her friends as a child, she was never so agile again after getting burned.
It’s a dream come true for Kim Phuc, who is happy to have Nick Ut, a man she considers to be her uncle, by her side during the process. “Having the ability to take care of these patients that face much more hard roads than the average patient is an honor and I see it as a responsibility of mine”. “The photo was as authentic as the Vietnam war itself”.
Despite her still fighting physical pain 43 years on, Kim has embraced the challenging life she was given in June of 1972.
Speaking with CNN this summer, Phuc spoke about how helping child victims of war has become her life’s mission. Phuc is expected to undergo at least seven treatments over the next eight or nine months. Napalm was still sticking to her skin.
“This was so light, just so easy”, she says.
Phuc has already started her treatment at Waibel’s clinic on September 26.
“Maybe it takes a year but I am really excited – and thankful”.
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After spending her teenage years in Vietnam, Kim attended college in Havana, Cuba, but lingering health issues stifled her dream of studying medicine.
