Hoping to comfort and encourage people injured on Saturday last week in a fire at the Formosa Fun Coast (八仙海岸) park in New Taipei City, pop diva Jeannie Hsieh (謝金燕) shared how she and her sister recovered from injuries and burns.
Model-actress Lin Chi-ling (林志玲) and Pixar Animation Studios animator Chang Yung-han (張永翰) also encouraged survivors.
Hsieh and her elder sister, Hsieh Ching-yan (謝青燕), were critically injured in a 1991 automobile collision that killed the driver, a friend of theirs.
Screengrab from Jeannie Hsieh’s Facebook
“I sustained multiple fractures, a pelvic fracture, second-degree burns on my buttocks and severe pleural effusion [fluid on the lungs]. I was in a coma in intensive care for three days, but I made it through with a strong survival instinct,” Jeannie Hsieh was quoted as saying in a report by the Chinese-language Apple Daily on Friday.
Jeannie Hsieh said her condition was such that her mother signed an advance medical directive to give up emergency resuscitation.
Hsieh Ching-yan received third-degree burns to 50 percent of her body and underwent numerous surgical debridement, skin grafting and rehabilitation treatments, Jeannie Hsieh said.
Photo: Ho Ching-hsien
“She wore a pressure garment for nearly two years. Our family support was vital to the subsequent rehabilitation and mental rebuilding. Her voice was very famous at the Tri-Service General Hospital [in Taipei],” Jeannie Hsieh said.
Hsieh Ching-yan was isolated to avoid infections, but the sisters were reunited and discharged two months later, Jeannie Hsieh said.
Jeannie Hsieh’s fractured pelvis was her most severe injury, she said, adding that she used a wheelchair for a year and crutches for another three.
Physicians said it was a miracle that she could stand again, she said.
She went from being an immobile patient to a celebrated dancing singer, she said, urging the victims of the Formosa Fun Coast incident to “never give up.”
She also dismissed reports that said the sisters received treatment and plastic surgery in Japan, saying that all their treatment was performed at Tri-Service General Hospital in Taipei.
Surgeons at the hospital carefully stitched the wounds on her face — which was all the facial surgery she had — but scars are visible when her makeup is removed, she said.
Saying that Taiwan has excellent medical staff and advanced equipment, she called on the victims and their families to have faith in the nation’s medical system and not to seek unorthodox therapies.
To extend her care to those who suffer similar fates, she bought hundreds of boxes of lychee grown by a farmer in Chiayi County who was saving for cosmetic surgery to remove scars on her granddaughters’ faces caused by a car accident two years ago, Jeannie Hsieh said.
She offered to pay for the surgeries, but the two girls are too young for the procedures, she said.
She donated NT$1 million (US$32,133) for the Formosa Fun Coast victims and postponed the release of her new single.
Separately, Lin, upon learning burn victim Chen Wan-hsuan (陳宛萱), an aspiring model who suffered burns to 70 percent to her body and is receiving treatment in Taichung, was described as losing her will to stay alive after an extremely painful debridement, said she would cut short the rest of her tour in China to visit Chen to encourage her to stay strong.
The news of the visit reinvigorated Chen, who considers Lin her role model, Chen’s brother said.
Chang created a hand-drawn picture with characters from the film Inside Out.
A native of Changhua County’s Yuanlin Township (員林), Chang joined Pixar three years ago, after studying in the US, and Inside Out is the first movie in which he played a vital role, he said.
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