bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

hooksAmpRedirectArticle

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

paywallTypes

createdDate

publishedDate

sponsorType

urlAlias

moreOnThisArticles

commentCount

authorLocations

authors

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

articleSpeeches

socialHeadline

headline

images

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

sponsor

pdfFiles

seriesReverseOrder

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

readingTime

customTimezone

liveContents

None of the five pupils badly burned  in the Pat Sin Leng  fire has ever wept during 10  years of surgery to reconstruct their faces and their lives, their surgeon says.

'I am very impressed that they have never cried in front of me, never shown any sign of depression,' said plastic surgeon Walter King Wing-keung.  'They are always very cheerful.'

Dr King, who has treated them for free for the past decade, is known as their 'godfather'.

Calling them  'very special patients of mine', Dr King - former chief of the Prince of Wales Hospital's burns unit - said he was  impressed by their will to live. With strong support from their parents, friends and the community, they had been adjusting well to the trauma, he said.

Dr King recalled the moment when he met the victims for the first time on the day of the disaster in 1996.

The injuries were  life-threatening,  including  severe burns to their skin.

'When I went to the intensive care unit, the students were moaning on their beds, all bandaged.  It was quite a stressful scene. I could not see their faces.'

After leaving the public hospital in 1998, Dr King became the head of the plastic and reconstructive centre at the Hong Kong Sanatorium and Hospital.

With funding from the Li Shu Fan Memorial Foundation, the hospital and Dr King have been providing free treatment for the victims.

Dr King has used  technologies such as laser and intense pulse light treatment to reconstruct their appearance.   Surgery has helped  ease mobility problems in  hands, legs, eyelids and mouths.

'Burns treatment is a long-term therapy,' Dr King said. 'Even though it has been 10 years since the fire, the treatment will continue.'

In general, a severely burnt patient needs six to 20 operations during an acute stage of treatment and  a further 10 to 20 in the rehabilitation period.

Dr King said that except for some 'unsightly' scars,  the survivors were no different from other young people and they had given him a lesson in life. 'They taught me not to give up easily,' he said.



Young victims prove to be 'inspiration' for surgeon