希望天使
Ammie Reddick from East Kilbride, Lanarkshire, was only 18 months old when she had the accident that has scarred her for life. While her mother's back was turned for a moment, the inquisitive toddler reached up to grab the flex of a hot kettle in the family kitchen and poured boiling water over her tiny infant frame.
Her mother Ruby spun round and, seeing Ammie horribly scalded, called an ambulance which rushed her daughter to a nearby hospital. Twenty per cent of Ammie's body had been burned and all of her burns were third-degree. The doctors could tell immediately that Ammie's best chance of survival was a specialised burns unit some miles away at Glasgow Royal Infirmary. There, using tissue taken from unburned areas of Ammie's body, surgeons performed complex skin grafts to close her wounds and control her injuries, an operation that took about six hours. Over the next 16 years, Ammie underwent 12 more operations to repair her body.
When she started school at Maxwelton Primary at age four, other pupils made cruel comments or simply wouldn't play with her. “I was the only burned child in the street, the class and the school,” she recalls. “Some children refused to become friends because of that.”
Today, age 17, Ammie can only ever remember being a burned person with scars； pain is a permanent part of her body. She still has to have two further skin grafts. Yet she is a confident, outgoing teenager who offers inspiration and hope to other young burns victims.
Ammie's parents Ruby, a funeral director, and Gibby, a policeman, have been a tremendous support. “They told me if people had a problem with my burns, the problem was theirs not mine,” says Ammie. “They taught me to cope with other people's reactions and constantly reminded me I was valued and loved.” Ammie's positive philosophy means she is now in demand with burns organisations, helping younger patients build their self-esteem to live with permanent scars.
She is a member of the Scottish Burned Children's Club, a charity set up last year. Says Donald Todd, chairman of the club and a senior burns nurse at Edinburgh's Royal Hospital for Sick Children, “Ammie provides so much encouragement for younger ones. She is upbeat and outgoing and a perfect role model for them.”
This month, Ammie will be joining the younger children at the Graffham Water Centre in Cambridgeshire for the charity's first summer camp . “I'll show them how to shrug off unkind stares from others,” she says. Ammie loves wearing fashionable sleeveless tops, and she plans to show the youngsters at summer camp that they can too. “I do not go to great lengths to hide my burns scars,” she says. “I gave up wondering how other people would react years ago.”
Donald Todd believes Ammie will be invaluable at the camp： “She is mature beyond her years. Ammie has taken a tragic experience and used it to shape a very strong, helpful personality.”
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