“I remember the pain but I also remember the kindness”

This story contains descriptions of severe burn injuries and a child's experience of emotional distress. It is shared with the full consent of Dard and his family, in honor of his courage and the care he received.

Dard was eleven years old when his life changed in seconds. Over the next year, he would endure unimaginable challenges. This is a story of perseverance, courage, healing, and the care that gave him a second chance at life.

No one can tell Dard’s story better than him and his mom (see video below)

On an ordinary afternoon in Xayaboury province, a group of children was playing near the temple where eleven-year-old Dard lived as a young novice. Someone lit a match near some gasoline. In an instant, Dard's world collapsed into fire and pain.

The burns covered 62% of his body, concentrated across his back. What followed were months of unimaginable suffering as his family sought care at hospital after hospital, searching desperately for someone who could help. Dard remembers every single hospital, etched in his mind in vivid detail.

While in Thailand, his mother had no choice but to be discharged against hospital advice, as they could no longer afford to pay for any treatment, leaving them with no choice. Dard was still in pain, far from recovery, when they returned to Laos. Immediately, they sought help from a district hospital where Dard was first treated. They were advised to take Dard to Lao Friends Hospital for Children (LFHC) in Luang Prabang, a 5-hour drive away.

By the time he arrived in LFHC, three months had already passed. On admission, parts of his wounds were still raw, and the extensive scarring was already showing, limiting some of his movements. While his body fought to heal, he was quietly fighting his own battle, something far darker.

When things felt the harderst...

While getting his wounds cleaned and dressed, Dard pleaded with his mother to end his suffering. Dard had reached a breaking point.

These are difficult words to write but they matter, because they speak to the reality of what he endured.

Severe burns are among the most painful injuries a human being can experience. For a child already exhausted by months of agonizing pain and intense treatment in a hospital. The weight of it all had become unbearable for young Dard.

His mother held him close and with a soft reassurance, muttered words of love, promising that she would continue to hold him through the pain and that letting go was not an option.

Recognizing the sensitivity of the situation, a multidisciplinary team at LFHC came together to support him and develop a care plan. Combining medical care, pain management, and compassionate presence to help Dard move forward, one step at a time.

The LFHC team did something remarkable. Nurses and doctors sat with him and made sure his pain was addressed. Physiotherapists found ways to make sessions feel less like treatment and more like something to look forward to. Staff took him outside in a wheelchair when the pain allowed. They played with him. They made him feel seen.

“Everyone in LFHC has been very kind to me. They play with me and make me happy to live again.”

— Dard, burns survivor

What followed was more than a year of intensive, ongoing care at LFHC.

Severe burns like Dard’s require a long and complex journey of treatment, surgery, and rehabilitation, including months of daily wound care, careful pain management, nutritional support, surgeries to repair scar tissue that limits mobility, and intensive rehabilitation.

"This place (LFHC) is full of compassionate and kind people. It is the best place to heal. I never thought we’d be in this situation now"
- Dard's mother

Addressing mental health in children in Laos

The kind of trauma Dard has lived through would require sustained mental health support in most countries. The Development Clinic team and our Childlife Therapist did everything within their professional scope to support Dard's emotional well-being and lift his spirit up.

The pediatric mental health service simply does not yet exist in northern Laos. This is a gap we hope to close.

As LFHC grows, providing mental health support for our patients is a future we dream of, and we welcome professionals and volunteers to help us build it.

Today, Dard is back home in Xayaboury. His healing continues, step by step. The LFHC’s Outreach team continues to monitor him and is ready to support him if further surgical repair is needed.

Dard is impressively resilient, as many Lao children are. He is positive. He is hopeful. And when he talks about his time at LFHC, he does not describe it as the place where he suffered. He describes it as the place that gave him his future back.

Stories like Dard's are possible because of donors like you. Every contribution to Friends Without a Border helps LFHC provide the care that Lao children cannot access anywhere else.