May 24, 2009
Healing The Most Deeply Scarred
Operation Mend Offers State-Of-The-Art Surgery To Help Disfigured Service Members Regain Normality
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Play CBS Video Video Operation Mend Of all the wounds U.S. troops suffer, none is worse than severe burns that leave grotesque scars. A UCLA plastic surgeon is giving them a chance to appear human once again. David Martin Reports.
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Octavio Sanchez is one of the lucky ones to have ended up at UCLA to be treated for third-degree burns over 70 percent of his body. (CBS)
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Joey Paulk is still recovering from wounds suffered nearly two years ago in Afghanistan. (CBS)
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The soldiers and Marines at UCLA Medical Center suffered their scars for us.
At age 23, Joey Paulk is still recovering from wounds suffered nearly two years ago in Afghanistan. He was in a Humvee hit by a triple-stacked anti-tank mine.
"It hit our fuel tank," Paulk told Martin.
"So, you burst into flame?"
"Yeah."
His face has been through hell.
Dr. Timothy Miller, the head of reconstructive surgery at UCLA, is inspecting the results of his first attempt to repair Joey’s face.
"Well, for our first shot I think we did pretty good," he said.
Dr. Miller expressed delight that Paulk could close his mouth when asked: "That’s amazing!"
Until now Joey’s features had been so distorted by fire he couldn’t close his mouth or his eyes.
Now one of this country’s top plastic surgeons, Miller first saw the wounds of war as a young doctor in a MASH unit in Vietnam. The wounds he sees from roadside bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan, he says, are worse.
"Do they produce a particular kind of disfigurement?" Martin asked.
"Absolutely," Dr. Miller said. "The roadside bomb is an incredibly destructive. It’s got a blast. It’s got unbelievable heat. So the depth of the burn is usually very, very significant."
So significant that Joey spent 17 months at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, considered the best burn unit in the world. But it was philanthropist Ronald Katz who came up with the idea and the money to get disfigured soldiers into the expert hands of Dr. Miller.
"A bad burn is about as severe an injury and as painful an experience over a long period of time that you can imagine," Dr. Miller said.
How much Miller can do to give Joey back his looks depends a lot on how much unburned skin he can find to repair the scarring. This is not nip-and-tuck plastic surgery; Dr. Miller’s inspiration comes from an inscription he found on a 16th century Italian cathedral: it is the divine right of man to appear human.
Paulk "feels great," he told Martin. "Yeah, I’m less, less embarrassed walking around. I used to always wear my sunglasses, even at night, to try to cover my eyes."
"You didn’t like all the stares you were getting?"
"Yeah, it kind of bugged me."
The UCLA program is called Operation Mend, but that little word doesn’t begin to capture what’s happening here - and the real work isn’t limited to the face.
"You got your hands messed up real bad, too. I guess there’s not much they can do for that?" Martin asked.
"I can do basically everything I can when I had fingers," Paulk replied.
He lives pretty much like any other twenty-something, and he doesn’t need his finger to cream his father in ping pong.
At Joey’s house he lives with his girl friend, Sarah, who was his high school sweetheart and has stuck with him.
"You find out who the real you is when the external you gets messed up," Martin said.
"Oh, definitely, yeah. Definitely," Paulk said.
"And I guess you find out if your girlfriend really likes you."
"Oh yeah, definitely!" he laughed.
So far Operation Mend has spent $1.2 million treating 24 patients, and according to UCLA, federal health care only covers about a third of the cost for the state-of-the-art surgery these burns require.
"There must be hundreds of young men and women who have been burned and disfigured by roadside bombs," Martin said.
"We’re trying to get the word out," Dr. Miller said.
Octavio Sanchez is one of more than 800 service men and women who have been through the burn center at Brooke, and one of the lucky two dozen to end up at UCLA. Today he can walk done the street with his wife Vanette, holding his youngest son, and just be one of the neighbors.
His Humvee was hit by a string of three roadside bombs in Iraq.
"When I came out of the vehicle, I was engulfed in flames," Sanchez told Martin. "They ran up and put me out with a fire extinguisher."
In the space of a few brief moments, he went from handsome to disfigured. He had third-degree burns over 70 percent of his body.
Sanchez said his wife was distraught. His children could barely recognize him.
"When I went out to Iraq I was a good 206 pounds, you know, a healthy man," he told Martin. "And when my children saw me, I was just about a buck thirty-five, I looked totally different. My oldest son said, 'The only reason I recognize you, Dad, was because of your tattoo.' And my other boy, he, he couldn’t believe it. He said that it wasn’t his dad."
His children - Jacob, Octavio, Jaslyn and Ryan (who wasn’t born yet when his father was wounded) - all seem totally oblivious to their father’s wounds now. But there was a time when it hurt to be seen with him in public.
"My oldest boy Jacob, he would get upset, you know, and that’s when it started getting me upset, when he would get upset," Sanchez said. "One day we were at the mall and when we were walking out he brought it up to my attention. He was in tears, he was angry. He said he wanted to beat them up, you know? That’s when I knew I was gonna be later on down the road looking for somebody to reconstruct my nose."
After meeting Dr. Miller, Sanchez underwent surgery to recreate his nose. "My forehead was one of the areas that didn’t get burned, and it just so happened that it, it ended up harvesting my nose," Sanchez said.
Dr. Miller took some cartilage from Sanchez's rib, which he describes as "not fun at all."
"That’s not the nose that God gave you?" Martin said.
"It’s not. It’s not the nose that God gave me. It’s the second nose God gave me."
"What did Vanette think as this new nose was growing?"
"She said it was kind of big, you know?" Sanchez laughed. "But it started kinda forming, you know, and started getting a little bit smaller."
"It goes with your face," Martin said.
"Yeah."
"It doesn’t look like somebody else’s nose."
"Right."
Sanchez lost his right hand but kept his left even though it is barely functional, just so he could feel his children’s faces. He still attracts the occasional stare, but Dr. Miller has given him back his divine right to appear human.
If you were to stare at the Sanchez family today, you’d wouldn’t say, "Ooh, what happened to him?" You’d say, "My, what a beautiful family.”
"I'm just blessed, you know, to be here, you know, to be alive, and watch my kids grow, spend time with my wife, family."
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Add a Comment See all 13 Comments
- a terrific piece. keep them coming. we need to be reminded of the costs of this war. and we need to have work like this to keep pressure on congress to help our veterans. thanks.
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- I would like to every one who has served this country. You are brave and well be remembered.
What I see as a low blow is how are Vets are treated mediclly. VA hospitals are in deirepair and the vets can't get the Social Secutity Benifs they have earned.
Greater love has no other than this if you do what i command; you are my friend if you do what I command.
That's a bible verse that is appicable. - Reply to this comment
- I was appalled to hear that their federal medical insurance covered only one third of their reconstructive surgeries.
With all the money our government spends, these soldiers should be fully covered.
It?s the very least our government could do.
Write your senators. - Reply to this comment
- Posted by WayAround at 8:20 AM : May 24, 2009
Posted by Strike-Hold at 8:47 AM : May 24, 2009
Posted by cs4466 at 3:52 PM : May 24, 2009
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The self serving comments of the above three were brought to you by the first amendment - defended by the very folks who are the topic of this article.
Hopefully soon, everyday Americans will step up and do what the government should have done all along - since we seem to have lost control of that apparently self serving government. - Reply to this comment
- Casualty's of war. Lets please not start another one.
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- This morning before going to work, I saw the story on our wounded vets who need out of the ordinary medical help on their return. Thank God for people like Mr. Ronald Katz who has donated funds for these procedures. I can still clearly remember when Rumsfeld stated " you go to war with the army you have", when asked about the poor planning in getting the proper equipment to the forces in Iraq. Our most precious commodity, our young men and women, who signed up to serve this nation, who have given their all, have been continually treated poorly and given the short end of the stick. When you consider how many billions Cheney and his cronies at Haliburton have made off the blood of our vets, you would think he might try and buy his way into heaven by donating a few dollars too.
As the other posters have stated...........KARMA...... Personally, I just hope Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld burn in hell. - Reply to this comment
- "Healing The Most Deeply Scarred"
Ohhhh I thought this article was about the GOP. Nevermind - Reply to this comment
- When I pass a person whose injuries, however come by, are disfiguring I think of a patient I knew several years back. She dreaded going out, and had stopped going to church because, as she once told me :"My face scared the children." My heart ached for her. As we got to know each other I couldn't see her injuries, just her, in all her goodness and kindness. My own greatgrandmom died of infection from severe burns years ago. When I see soldiers I often thank them for their sacrifice. As stated in The Velveteen Rabbit:"Once you are real, you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."
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- What do we tell our kids? If you don't hang around with troublemakers, you won't get in trouble.
If you don't participate in an unjust war.... - Reply to this comment
- One line in the piece on healing war soldiers stood out in my mind: Insurance only pays for a part of the healing operations. Who pays the rest? The soldier, his family? What I don't understand is that these soldiers were sent to Iraq & Afganistan by our government. They gave their lives and bodies to defend the United States. Why isn't the government paying the total cost of the healing to these brave soldiers? Why should they have to bear even one penny for the healing/pain/emotional stress they are going through after giving their service to the United States? Shame on our government!
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- Great reporting...guys..
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- WE NEED MORE REHABILITATION CENTERS FOR VETS, CHILDREN, TEENS....ADULTS AND OLD ROCK AND ROLL STARS WHO NEED HELP IN THEIR LIVES . TEACH AYURVEDIC PRINCIPLES... WORKS! IT SHOULD... BEEN TESTED FOR 5,000 YEARS!
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- Divine Right to Appear Human...
The reasons for this war....unclear still.....Humans hurting Humans.
Vets need special attention. They are special Humans that gave their ALL for Humans.
The Humans that led this WAR should be MADE TO PAY FOR THEIR LIFE LONG PHYSICAL AND MENTAL THERAPYS...
Bush and Cheynne and the whole gang that made Biiiiiiiiiiiilliions off this WAR should be made to pay. KARMA. Look at the mess this country is in..
OBAMA....hear my PRAYER.... - Reply to this comment
