AFTER completing four surgeries and getting ready to complete just one more, 14-year-old burn victim Ackalia Dunkley could be released from the Joseph M Still (JMS) Burn Center at Doctors Hospital in Augusta, Georgia, United States, in a month’s time.

Doctors have been enthused by Ackalia’s progress since she arrived at the facility on June 21.

On June 16 Ackalia, a student of Black River High School in St Elizabeth, was preparing tea in the early morning, before heading off to the institution, when a mishap allegedly led to a gas explosion that melted her uniform on her body.

When Ackalia arrived in the USA it was five days after she got burnt, not ideal but it was better late than never, according to Dr Zaheen Hassan, president of the JMS Burn Center.

Dr Hassan commended the University Hospital of the West Indies for doing all they could to keep Ackalia alive before she was flown to the USA.

“At least she got here,” Hassan said. “Her total body surface area was 50 per cent. That is a big burn, even for the USA. For Jamaica and other Third World countries — like the country that I came from, Bangladesh — if someone gets even 40 per cent burns, it is a death sentence. They can’t do anything. When she came here I was very happy that the doctors in Jamaica, with minimum resources, did a phenomenal job. Ackalia did not get infected and did not get septic. As soon as she came, I checked her out with my team and decided to go to the operating room the next day because she was very dry. We would have taken her to the operating room the same day if we could. Fortunately, most of her burns were second-degree. We took a small amount of skin from her hip area to do a recell.”

Dr Hassan added: “We spread the recell on both arms and the face. The other areas with deeper burns, like the right hand and both lower legs, we had to shave off the dead tissue and put cadaver skin. That was the first surgery we did. The next surgery we did was on June 28, 2023. On July 3, 2023 we took her to the operating room and did a whole dressing change and took the cadaver skin off the lower leg to prepare for skin grafting. Skin grafting was done July 5, 2023, and we harvested the skin from her back and grafted both legs and right hand. She is talking and doing really well. She will go back to the operating room today or Wednesday for another dressing change, and all the staples will be removed so she can feel even better.”

Dr Hassan, who shared that he is a believer in God and always asks the Almighty to help him do no harm to his patients, told the Jamaica Observer that he had mixed feelings when he first received Ackalia.

“The first feeling was bad because she is only 14 years old and had 50 per cent of her body burnt. The good feeling came after we examined her. I felt this was not so bad and I thought we would get her better in a short space of time. The future is very difficult to predict but I have been doing medicine for about 42 years now. I have been doing burns for 25 years so, with my limited experience, I would say probably about four to six weeks she should be able to go back to Jamaica,” he said.

Five burn surgeons, three paediatricians, and roughly 30 mid-level practitioners worked to ensure Ackalia’s survival. Her father, Ruphema Dunkley, said he did not have the words to explain how grateful he was and expressed that with “God in the vessel, we can smile at the storm”.