Earthquake patient

Yesterday the team preformed surgery not on a burns patient but a young girl who was injured in the 2015 Nepal earthquake and had askin contracture.She lives in Sindulpalchok which was the Epi Centre of the Earthquake. Here is Soniya’s story:

I came onto my afternoon shift yesterday to a very busy ward of post op burns surgery and was asked by one of the Nepali nurses to assist her with a beautiful little10 yearly Nepali girl who needed assistance, her name is Soniya. As I helped out I asked her how she got her injury, she said from the earthquake. I wanted to know more as I had just previously lived in Nepal from 2010-2015 with my family and had only left 9 months before the Earthquake. (my Husband who works for ADRA acutally come back to Nepal to help in ADRA’s response to the earthquake). So I sat down with her and her mother and proceeded to ask questions about what happened.

Soniya was playing outside in-between her and her neighbours house when the earthquake happened. The neighbours house collapsed on her and she was buried undernearth all the rubble. Her mother and father were inside their house when this happened and ran out and saw that the neighbours house had collapsed and they could not find Soniya. They were screaming out her name with no reply for hours and then they finally heard a small faint voice and started lifting all the rubble away while telling her to still keep talking and singing so they knew where to find her. After more then a day they reached her! She had been badly injured and was taken by car to the Scheer Memorial Hospital. She was taken into theatre to clean and close the injury that she had sustained when the earthquake happened. This year our Surgeons have been able to release a skin contracture that has occurred from scaring from her injuries. Her family feel blessed that the surgeons where able to correct the contracture and make Soniya’s life a little easier after what she has been through. Her Mother is now working in the cafeteria of the hospital.