Miracle for the feet of mountain children

Talking about walking after surgery - Photo: BD

Thoại is 16 years old this year, living in roof C72, village 4, Trà Cang commune (Nam Trà My district, Quảng Nam province). It takes Thoại several hours to walk to the village.

Feet "locked" in boots

Sitting at the entrance of a ground-floor house deep in alley 36 Le Duan Street (Da Nang), Thoai smiled happily and contentedly.

"Brother Binh Nam, look at this. I've only been practicing for a few days and now I can sometimes put down my crutches. I feel my legs changing, the plaster covering the outside is drying up, the surgical wounds are getting warm, so fast that I feel my legs tingling and moving every night" - Thoai looked up at the strange man he had never met, the man who changed his fate.

Mr. Nam bent down and touched Thoại's heel, which was in a cast after surgery: "I'm so happy for you! Now that you're healed, you can go back to the village to climb mountains and help your mother, without having to wear boots like before."

Seeing the Ca Dong boy on the high mountains talking with Nguyen Binh Nam, who is considered a "fairy god" to thousands of children in the highlands, made everyone sitting nearby speechless.

Thoại is one of the boys and girls from the highlands, in a remote area that Mr. Nam brought down to the city to have leg surgery.

For city dwellers, a child born with clubfoot is not too difficult to correct early and restore healthy legs. But in the high mountains, that can sometimes only be achieved by miracles.

Thoại is a boy who received that miracle. He said that he was the eldest of three children in his family. His parents spent the whole year on the mountains, returning home at dusk to provide food for the family. After being born and growing up, it was not until he was 2 years old that Thoại realized that his legs were different from those of his peers.

Mr. Nguyen Binh Nam said that in April, during his trips to the mountains to build schools and support children in the highlands, he was led to Thoai's house by his teachers. Looking at the boy with even white teeth, dark brown skin, tall and slender, and thick, dark hair like a tanned man of the mountains and forests, he imagined that if it weren't for his crippled legs, Thoai could have been a different person: mature, happy, and the master of the entire Ngoc Linh forest.

"But Thoai appeared before my eyes as a pitiful figure. She only took off her plastic boots when she went to bed every night. During the day, those boots were very hot and smelled bad, but Thoai never dared to take them off. Thoai was embarrassed by her crippled feet, only told her teacher about her true form and ran away when she saw her friends trying to pull the boots off her feet," said Nam.

It took Thoai many attempts and many ways to pull the boots off and "demonstrate" his ability to walk on the ground for Nam to see. The image was videotaped and sent to a respected doctor in Ho Chi Minh City that Nam knew.

Just two weeks later, an emergency flight was arranged to bring Thoại and another 3-year-old boy, who also had crippled legs like Thoại, back to Ho Chi Minh City. The two boys from the mountains were sedated, anesthetized, and taken to the operating table.

When they woke up, when they touched their feet, they both burst into tears when they saw that their toes were no longer curled together like before, but were lying still inside a ball of dough wrapped around the outside.

Mr. Nguyen Binh Nam went to Ho Thi Dan's house to persuade her to have surgery on her legs - Photo: BD

"Uncle Nam, our child can walk now!"

The story of the Ca Dong, Xe Dang, Pa Ko children... living in the high, remote mountains, living in a dead-end and seemingly burying their disabled fate with legs that could not stand on the ground, then one day being taken down the mountain by strangers they had never met for surgery sounds like a fairy tale.

But that is a real fairy tale. Also beautiful and with a happy ending as usual, fairy tales written by strangers in the story of finding crippled legs all end in joy and tears.

One day in early June, after a flight from Ho Chi Minh City to bring her son Ho Minh Lanh (commonly known as Bum) back to the motel rented by Mr. Nguyen Binh Nam for physical therapy, while taking her son out to the hallway to play, the young mother Ho Thi Dan suddenly screamed with joy when she saw her son taking his first steps.

"Uncle Nam, Bum can walk now! Oh Yang (god)!" - Ms. Dan called out the name of the benefactor who helped her and her son on their journey to find their son's legs, and then tears fell. Hot tears and extreme happiness from a single mother, suffering from a cruel fate.

Dan is 24 years old this year, in the same village and was found by Nguyen Binh Nam and brought to the city for surgery to restore her son's legs in the same story as Nguyen Van Thoai. Dan used to be a beautiful girl in the village, when love was just budding, she met a guy near the village and got pregnant. Dan had to carry her belly growing under her clothes to her parents' house to give birth, raising the child alone because the person she loved rejected her own blood.

Dan burst into tears and said that at one point she thought about going to the edge of the field to eat poison ivy because she was so angry. When Bum was born, she held her hands and touched his two red, tender feet, and cried in despair because she knew her child was disabled.

The story reached the teachers. As if by fate, "Uncle Binh Nam" - the name many people in the highlands often call Nguyen Binh Nam - came again. Like Thoai, the miracle of restoring his legs to health was performed. But for Bum, the surgery was simpler and the recovery was faster because Bum was only 3 years old, and his legs were not yet deformed like those of people with long-term disabilities.

After being taken to Ho Chi Minh City for surgery and bone adjustment, Bum was taken back to Da Nang by "Uncle Binh Nam". There, Bum and several other families whose children had just had leg surgery were rented a room so they could go to the hospital for physical therapy every day.

Every day, small families do not stay at a motel but stop by "Uncle Binh Nam's" house to play, cook, bathe, and eat together because "living at Uncle Nam's house is more fun than living in a motel". Uncle Nam's house has a 50m long corridor leading to the door. That is the space for everyone to play and relax, and it is also the place to witness magical moments that mark the change of a person's fate.

One morning, the young mother Ho Thi Dan sat on a bamboo chair on the steps watching her son playing in the yard. Bum suddenly lifted his butt off the ground, stood up unsteadily, then fell flat on his face, crying out in pain.

That moment was so magical that it made Dan jump up and down with joy. "Uncle Binh Nam, Bum can walk!" - Dan shouted when he saw his son taking his first steps. Those were the first steps that Dan had longed to see since the day he carried the red lump of flesh wrapped in a towel to go back to his parents' house.

The one who changes lives

Mr. Nam was asked to "kiss his cheek" by a boy he took to have leg surgery - Photo: BD

Mr. Nguyen Binh Nam currently works at a state agency in Da Nang and is a leader of many volunteer activities for people in the highlands.

Mr. Nam said that the story of bringing children from the highlands down to the city for surgery began when he watched a TV program and saw that there were too many children in remote areas who, due to lack of funds and conditions, accepted to live a sad life with deformed legs.

When sharing his wish to have good orthopedic doctors, Mr. Nam wrote his wish on his personal social media page and was contacted by a doctor named Rened Esser in Ho Chi Minh City. This person said that he would perform surgery and provide free accommodation for all clubfoot patients that Mr. Nam introduced.

That story of fate has so far helped many children from Quang Tri, Quang Nam, Quang Ngai... to have surgery and have their legs healed.

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/phep-mau-cho-doi-chan-cua-nhung-dua-tre-nui-20240624000040503.htm