Article by Deron Denton.
Precious hadn't yet turned 11 years old. But she was old enough to confidently be left in charge of her younger sister, Catherine, who was 2.
With the little girl strapped to her back, Precious decided to take a stroll to the nearby city market for a typical Zambian treat of mukaka, or milk biscuits. She had no way of knowing that within minutes, her life would be hanging in the balance.
The girls' parents work as street vendors selling sweetened ice blocks. That afternoon, in an effort to supplement their meager income, John, the girls' father, had gone to retrieve a refrigerator he'd agreed to repair for a friend.
"When I returned home," John says, "I was surprised to find the kids weren't home. I started to get worried around 7 p.m., when they still weren't back."
By this time, Evalyn, the girls' mother, had returned from spending the day selling ice. They began inquiring with neighbors and heard several secondhand reports of two girls being hit by a minivan. One neighbor's daughter – who was friends with Precious – confirmed their fears, telling the nowpanicked parents that she had been nearby at the time of the accident.
It was their daughters who had been hit. "She said they were dead," recalls John, "and that there was lots of blood."
Together, John and Evalyn ran to the police station but were told there was no record of such an accident. "We were advised by the police," says John, "to check with the university teaching hospital, in the B.I.D. (Brought in Dead) ward."
After a three-mile walk to the hospital, they were simultaneously relieved and horrified by what they found: Precious was alive but had a terrible wound on her arm. Given that she'd been dragged a long distance across the asphalt road by the vehicle that hit her, it could have been much worse. The driver apparently didn't realize he had hit the girls, stopping only when onlookers alerted him.
Precious is building up strength again in her arm after skin-graft surgery provided by CI.
Precious' wound was too severe to be properly stitched. The skin near the elbow of her arm, according to Sven Mugamya, CI's health coordinator in Lusaka, Zambia, "... had been peeled off to the bone."
"We broke down and cried," says John. "We didn't see our youngest, Catherine. We thought she might not have made it."
As it turns out, the man who hit the girls had taken her to his house and left his phone number. Amazingly, their toddler was only scratched and scared.
But Precious' condition was far more precarious. The brave little girl used her elbow to keep herself and Catherine as protected as possible for the roughly 80 feet that they had been dragged.
Despite her dire condition, the hospital wouldn't perform a necessary skin grafting procedure until her father paid for it – a common practice in underdeveloped countries.
Precious saved her little sister's life in a car accident.
"I felt helpless," John says. The bill would amount to more than three years' worth of their total family income. Thus, Precious was kept in the hospital, where they simply managed her pain.
Upon discharge, her parents were told to keep the wound as clean as possible. But without surgery, there was a good chance her wound would turn septic. It looked like their only option would be to amputate it.
John took Precious to CI's Chibolya community center, where she was seen by Sven. He referred her to a specialist and surgery was quickly scheduled. Emergency medical funds, which are available at each of CI's agencies around the world, covered the costs of the procedure.
"Without sponsorship," John says, unequivocally, "Precious would have lost her arm."
Precious tells us she has full use of her arm again, though she is carefully building the muscles back up before lifting Catherine with it.
Photos and reporting assistance by Chileshe Chanda.
Providing regular health checkups and medicines is just scratching the surface of how donations are put to use. Emergency medical funds to cover cases like Precious' is another way CI helps. Here are a few of the many ways our medical benefits are bolstered by strong relationships:
