It was in 2001 when 9-year-old Zubaida Hasan suffered a serious accident while carrying a kerosene stove into her home in a small village in Farah province in Afghanistan.
Zubaida Hasan: the amazing recovery of the girl whose face “melted”
In a moment of carelessness, Zubaida Hasan suffered a serious accident, flames began to spread rapidly through her body, burning much of her body, neck, face and arms.
Due to the seriousness of her injuries, her father decided to travel to Iran for help, where little Hasan was hospitalized for 20 days.
The doctors’ diagnosis was devastating: he was told to return home and wait for his daughter’s death. Amazingly, she survived.
However, her appearance took a drastic change, resulting in her face literally “melting”.
Her father was determined to change his beloved daughter’s life, so in February 2002 he asked for help at a U.S.
military base that was established in Kabul after the World Trade Center attacks. This event would mark a before and after in their lives.
There, the military doctors contacted the U.S. State Department of their government, who in turn arranged for Hasan’s case to be seen by Dr.
Peter Grossman, a reconstructive plastic surgeon from The Grossman Burn Center, California.
In this way, and with the help of the Children’s Burn Foundation, the girl was able to travel to the United States to receive treatment at the prestigious medical center.
Zubaida came to live with Dr. Grossman and his wife.
In addition to the operations she underwent, she began to receive psychological and physical treatment.
She learned to speak English and started attending classes for the first time in her life, in a school in California, while making her first friends.
During one year the girl underwent 12 surgeries, and despite the short time, the changes were amazing.
But after her treatment was over, she was ready to return to her country and be reunited with her parents and her eight siblings whom she had not seen for 12 months.
“If I find out you’re getting married at 13, you’ll see,” Dr. Grossman jokingly warned the girl when it was time to say goodbye.
Their time together led to a very close relationship, perhaps due to the fact that the professional had no children.
When the girl finally arrived in Afghanistan, her family could not believe their eyes. Everyone was shocked by the amazing recovery of Zubaida, who only a short time before had been on the verge of death.
This event was widely reported in the American media at the time, as it happened at the height of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan.
