Cape Town - Mujahid Wiener, 16, from Strandfontein, is honoured to serve Red Cross Hospital where he ended up at the age of 6, after his clothes caught alight from a braai fire and he sustained 47% burns on his body.
Tuesday night Mujahid said: “I just want to encourage those in hospital to let you know that you can achieve your goals no matter your condition. I will always be thankful to everyone who played a part in my recovery. I couldn’t have achieved my dreams without them.”
Describing the day of the accident, Mujahid’s mother, Kamilla Wiener, said: “At first I blanked out. Then I remember us wrapping him in a blanket and throwing water on him to put out the flames and trying to stop them reaching his hair and face. It was the worst thing ever.”
The ambulance brought Mujahid to the hospital’s trauma unit and later he had many operations and long stays in the burns unit and orthopaedic ward, where he underwent bone and skin reconstruction, she said.
He had to learn to move his arms and his legs and to walk. He then spent years in the burns outpatient rehabilitation programme which included music and movement therapy.
Mujahid forged many relationships at the hospital and although he has recovered well, still returns to be part of the Children’s Radio project on Saturdays and fulfil his role as an ambassador for The Children’s Hospital Trust.
Now in Grade 10 at Strandfontein High, Mujahid is 1.8m tall, weighs 60kg and experienced a dream come true when he made the Western Province under-15 team in 2016.
The first thing Mujahid did for his sports slot on Children’s Radio was interview his sport heroes Siya Kolisi and JP Duminy, so he could share his experience with young listeners in hospital, said Wiener.
“We go back regularly to the Burns Unit, just to say thank you. We can never repay what the staff did for him. That is why we are involved with Trust, promoting the hospital and the work done there.”
For many of the badly burnt children, some with 80% to 90% burns, healing takes place in the specialist units, and begins in the ICU. The new ICU still needs R3 million for high tech life-saving monitoring equipment, said the Trust’s chief executive, Louise Driver.