Maelle, Haitian Relief Mission

Maelle was helping her mother cook over the fire when she was scalded by boiling water. After losing her grip on the cauldron she was left with third degree burns all over her legs, making walking nearly impossible. Because of the strains on Haiti’s health system after decades of political turmoil, treatment options are extremely limited. In places like Haiti a simple clean wound dressing could mean the difference between a child keeping or losing their limb, unfortunately even these simple resources can be scarce. Without our intervention, she would likely never fully regain the proper use of her legs. By providing an abundance of sterile dressings, antibiotics, and our revolutionary laser technology, we were able to help Maelle and other children like her heal their scars. Unfortunately, burn injuries from cooking such as Maelle’s case make up the majority of burn instances in Haiti. This is in large part because of the traditional open air kitchens and cooking over large open flames, which are often very difficult to keep under control. Now Maelle has nearly regained full function in her legs, and is living with far less pain than before. After multiple laser treatments with our laser at Sacre Cœur hospital, her scars have been greatly reduced. Without the resources the Burn Advocates Network provided, Maelle would have most likely lost one or both of her legs to infection or atrophy. We continue to do everything in our power to provide proper burn care to the places where it’s most needed, like Haiti, to make sure children like Maelle don’t have to live with the physical and emotional scars that come from such devastating burns; because no child should live with burn scars.