Vietnam News December9, 2005

QUANG TRI — Thirty year-old Le Van Phuc is unlikely to forget the morning in 1992 when he was seriously wounded in Dong Ha Town after a landmine he had been digging up in his garden exploded.

Phuc fell into a coma and was rushed to hospital.

The mine crushed a kidney and wounded his intestines. His lungs and four fingers were also badly damaged. Worst of all, two fragments perforated his vertebrae, paralysing Phuc’s left side and kept him bedridden for seven years. He underwent six operations.

"I felt sad at that time because I was the main bread winner in a six-brother poor family," Phuc recalled.

Phuc’s life changed in 2000 when Clear Path International (CPI), an American-based landmine and bomb removal organisation, helped him through its unexploded ordnance (UXO)/landmine accident survivor assistance programme.

CPI offers extensive victim assistance services in Quang Binh and Quang Tri provinces, which include emergency medical care, hospitalisation, surgery, long-term health care support, prosthetics and physical therapy.

In the provinces of Thua Thien-Hue, Quang Nam, Quang Ngai, Ha Tinh, Da Nang and in the central highland’s area, the organisation supports the cost of emergency medical treatment for new victims.

"We assess the UXO victims’ living standards before supporting the most needy families and focusing on victim assistance work and hospital aid programmes," said CPI’s logistics co-ordinator Tran Duc.

Duc also said most victims are poor so they are unable to pay for treatment when they suffer injuries from landmines or bombs.

"We know that landmine and bomb clearance is very important, but we want to help ease the victim’s pain by paying for medical treatment," Duc added.

Since 2000, CPI has assisted more than 1,978 landmine victims in 15 central and highland provinces from Nghe An to Binh Phuoc, of which 708 victims came from Quang Tri Province alone. Over the past five years, CPI has given US$2 million to UXO victims and for medical equipment at hospitals in Dong Ha Town and Hue City.

The organisation also cleared landmines from a 43.5ha area in Dong Ha town and built a primary school on that land.

Phuc, after completing another intestinal surgery and physical rehabilitation for one year in Hue General Hospital, started a walking programme at home with hopes of being able to walk again.

His efforts paid off and Phuc can now walk and do some work around the house, but the income burden still rests on his mother and younger sister.

Phuc is planning to open a small shop in front of the Ham Nghi primary school near his house, to support himself and his family but is unsure how he will raise money from relatives for the initial investment.

New life

Do Thien Dang,45, a farmer in Trieu Long Commune, Trieu Phong District is another local landmine victim. He was working on a field in La Vang Commune, 25 years ago, when a mine exploded and cut off his legs above the knee.

When he got older, he would later need an operation to amputate the bone pertruding from his original injury. The poor farming family was unable to save enough money for their eldest son’s operation.

Stepping in, CPI paid the hospital fee of over US$1,000 for four months in the hospital. Dang was taken to the General Hospital in Hue and the protracting thigh bones were removed in 2002.

"I thought I could not get treatment at the hospital because my family’s income, based on rice farming, barely met our needs for food," Dang said, adding that the sum of money necessary was too large for any farmer who needed treatment at the hospital. The big problem was over, but the burden of being poor still hung over his family of three children, which survived only on farming.

Two years ago, Dang found a trade job planting woodear mushrooms with assistance from NGOs working in Quang Tri Province.

The job has added VND500,000 to his family’s income each season, easing the hardship of life in the suburban commune.

Dang not only does his job well, but he also takes part in sporting activities to ease his pain and to become stronger using his artificial legs. — VNS