Vietnam ‘Napalm Girl’ Receiving Laser Treatment for Scars in U.S.

A famous photograph taken at the time showed 9-year-old Kim Phuc fleeing from the scene in the village of Trang Bang near Saigon – she had ripped off her clothes to stop the burning.

In June 1972 a South Vietnamese military plane accidentally dropped flaming napalm on its own troops and civilians.

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. “I look at that picture and I just wish and dream that I never see another child suffer like that”, she says. It’s “heaven on earth for me!” she says. “I’m dying.” He won a Pulitzer Prize for the photo.

Ut remembers the girl screaming in Vietnamese, “Too hot!”

Mr Ut thinks of Ms Phuc as a daughter, and he anxious when, during their regular phone calls, she described her pain.

After almost 45 years into her new life, though, Kim, now 52, may finally be on the cusp of putting the pain of the injuries she sustained that day behind her – thanks to a relatively new medical procedure meant to ease pain felt by burn victims like no treatment ever has before.

Despite spending years doing exercises to preserve her mobility, simple tasks – like extending her left arm or carrying her purse on her left side – remain hard. 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”.

This type of treatment typically costs $1,500 to $2,000 per session but Dr. Waibel offered to donate her services when Phuc reached out to her for a consultation. The photos were published on Monday by the Associated Press.

Phuc has already started her treatment at Waibel’s clinic on September 26. The lasers being used were originally created to smooth out eye wrinkles, heating the skin to boiling point to vaporize scar tissue. According to AP, it is expected that Phuc will need up to seven treatments over the next eight or nine months. With severe napalm burns on her back, he brought her to the hospital, although very few people survive severe burns like she had. “So we are going to take out pieces, tiny pieces of skin with this fractional laser and then allow the body to heal it nearly to normal”.

“At nine years old, I remember I thought, ‘Oh my goodness, I got burned and I became ugly”.