Jamaica has no facilities to treat severe burns. Therefore, when teenagers Adrianna Laing and Ackalia Dunkley sustained life-threatening burns during separate fires at their homes, nine months apart, they were flown to the United States (US) to be given a fighting chance at life.

The entity that received them in the US was the Joseph M Still Burn Center at Doctors Hospital in Augusta Georgia.

Dr Zaheen Hassan, a surgeon who is president of the JMS Burn Center, shared at a press conference at the hospital on Monday that the procedures to save both girls were tough, but he highlighted that Adrianna’s case was more severe.

“Adrianna was a lot worse case than Ackalia. When Adrianna came, she was septic and infected really bad. Also, her left leg was amputated because it was dead below the knee. Her burn was a lot worse than Ackalia, but Ackalia was lucky,” Hassan said, pointing out that the University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI) did a good job with Ackalia prior to her being flown to the US five days after being burnt.

On September 4, 2022, Adrianna, a student of Maggotty High School in St Elizabeth, lost her three younger brothers, five-year-old twins Jayden and Jorden Laing, and eight-year-old Adriano Laing, during a massive fire at their home in Westmoreland. Adrianna, who was 13 years old at the time, survived but received burns to more than 90 per cent of her body and had a very tight window to remain alive. The Sanmerna Foundation in Jamaica stepped up to the task and quickly formed a partnership with the JMS Burn Center and started a campaign to raise funds to lift the girl to the facility by air ambulance.

READ: WATCH: Grandmother mourns death of 3 children killed in Westmoreland fire

After multiple surgeries, Adrianna returned home on March 30 this year.

READ: Burn victim Adrianna Laing returns home for first time since back from the US

On June 16 this year, Ackalia Dunkley, a fourteen-year-old girl from Burnt Savanna in St Elizabeth, was preparing tea before going to school at Black River High in the parish when a gas explosion occurred burning her severely and destroying the house she shared with her grandmother.

The Sanmerna Foundation once again took on the task of raising $US45,000, to airlift her to the JMS Burn Center.

Dr Hassan said the future is hard to predict, but based on his experience doing medicine over 42 years, Ackalia could be back in Jamaica in six weeks.

During Monday’s press conference, brothers and directors of the Sanmerna Foundation, Robert and Mark White, along with the projects manager of the foundation, Stephen Josephs, heaped praises on the administrators of the JMS Burn Center for demonstrating that people who receive severe burns do not have to die.

“The JMS Burn Center has been doing a really good job in terms of burn care. You would have seen that they did a remarkable job with our last patient, Adrianna Laing. We are back here with another patient, Ackalia Dunkley. The prognosis back home was that if she did not fly out on the 21st of June, she would have died because Jamaica doesn’t have a burn unit. We managed to raise some funds to fly her here out and JMS has so far done a terrific job,” Josephs said.

Robert White thanked JMS for answering the call.

“We take time out to thank the JMS Burn Center for the tremendous job they are doing. We would like to thank the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, the Diaspora and everyone who is part of the process.”

Mark White encouraged them to keep up the good work and said their, “help is priceless”.

Oliver Mair, who is Jamaica’s consul general in the southern United States, also expressed gratitude to all the donors and the JMS Burn Center for helping to save the lives of the Jamaican teens.