Coming up on
3rd Degree:
Episode title: My Own Voice
Broadcast date: Tuesday, 1 May 2012
Teaser ....
Imagine being unable to speak. For some like The Ndaliso family this is a reality . They live in a one bedroom shack in Zandspruit informal settlement in the west of Johannesburg.
Their 3-year-old little girl Lisakhanye accidentally pulled down a pot of boiling water and tragically suffered 3rd degree burns on her body. The internal scarring was extremely severe, eventually covering her voice box.
She could no longer speak. She was sent home from Chris Hani Baragwaneth Hospital with a trachy to help her breathe and metal disk to keep the hole open in her neck. But this left her susceptible to infections.
The family live in squalid conditions with a sewerage line running right through their house. They worry constantly about infectious germs entering her throat.
But then some good news, The Boikanyo Dion Herson Foundation, stepped in to help the family, they managed to raise some money to get the child to an ear, nose and throat surgeon at the Netcare Parklane Hospital in Johannesburg .
This week 3rd Degree scrubs up and enters the operating theatre, where groundbreaking surgery will be attempted, in a bid to get Lisakhanye to breathe properly and eventually be able to speak on her own .