Famed Vietnam War victim finally gets rid of all burn scars

Kim Phuc
Kim Phuc during her treatment in the US. Photo: Manorama Online.

Miami (US): The pain and scalds left by the Vietnam War would only remain in Kim Phuc’s heart hereafter. She has finally gotten rid of all the scalds on her body through the five-decades-long healing process.

Kim Phuc, the ‘Napalm girl', featured in the popular war photo clicked by photographer Nick Ut explaining the horror of the Vietnam War in one frame, completes her final session of skin treatment at a clinic in Miami, US.

On Tuesday, Kim, now 59, underwent the 12th and last session of laser therapy to remove the burn scars from her body.

All the tissues that were scalded on her body during the napalm bombing have been removed completely through treatment at Miami Dermatology and Laser Institute.

When Nick Ut received a Pulitzer Prize for his iconic Vietnam War photograph, Kim Phuc who survived severe scalds in the bombing received lots of love and fame from the world.

Ut was also present in Miami to witness the moment in which the 9-year-old girl whom he had captured running down the street in horror after a bombing, was finally getting completely healed 50 years later.

Phuc currently lives in Canada.

Sharing her horrifying memories with Nick Ut, Phuc remembered how the photojournalist ran carrying her and rushed her to the hospital after clicking the photograph. Ut reminisced how the hospital authorities who initially refused to treat her came around when he told them that her picture would be published on the first page of the newspapers if the girl died without getting the treatment.

(Napalm is a jelly-like inflammable substance made from petrol or gas; it is used in making bombs.)

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