Doctors Honored for Saving Girl

Nassau County Executive Edward P. Mangano and Rabbi Anchelle Perl honored local doctors who rescued a six-year-old Middle Eastern girl from Egypt to Long Island after being severely burned. The girl traveled from Gaza to Egypt only days before the national protests started exploding in the streets. She was then flown to the United States for urgent medical care.

The child spoke out for the first time with family to express gratitude for the community and doctors that assisted her. The Medical group that runs the Burn Center of Nassau County Medical Center volunteered their services. A Long Island-based not-for-profit group, Mission: Restore, organized the doctors as a public service, providing pro bono medical care along with transportation and hospital costs.

Doctors without Borders recommended urgent and highly specialized care in the United States for the treatment of the burn scars that was not available to her in Gaza. Therefore she and her mother started a six day journey across the Rafah crossing into Egypt and Cairo before making out just before the protest in Egypt.

“With the recent turmoil in Egypt and barrage of devastating news stories, it’s wonderful to be able to honor Nassau County doctors who saved this young girl’s life,” said Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano. “Her incredible story is a much-needed reminder to all of us that even amidst chaos and destruction, miracles do occur.”

“I wish to commend the Doctors at the Long Island Plastic Surgical Group. Their act of kindness today, is a timely reminder,” said Rabbi Perl, Director of Chabad of Mineola, NY, “of what can be accomplished when all of us adhere to that vision of a perfect world, realized by our commitment to compassion and kindness to each other, in an atmosphere of dignity and appreciation, for in the final analysis all of us share in the same image of G-d amidst our diversity and humanity.”

Both Dr. Kaveh Alizadeh and Dr. Roger L. Simpson of Long Island Plastic Surgical Group, volunteered their medical expertise to help rescue a six-year-old girl named Nebal Hani al Shamali. Nebal was severely injured when she knocked over a tea kettle which poured scolding hot water all over her body.

“Had it not been for the compassion of organizations like Mission: Restore and Doctors Without Borders, which acted immediately on this girl’s situation, the outcome we’re celebrating might have turned out very differently,” added Dr. Kaveh Alizadeh, the President of the Long Island Plastic Surgical Group.

Pictured below (left to right) are: Father Guirguis Tadros; Rabbi Anchelle Perl; Nassau County Executive Edward P. Mangano; patient Nebal Hani al Shamali; Dr. Kaveh Alizadeh of the Long Island Plastic Surgical Group and “Mission Restore” who performed the surgery at South Nassau Communities Hospital; Nurse Lynn Bert of South Nassau Communities Hospital who care for her as she recovered from surgery; Nebal’s mother Ikram al Shamali; Igram Mohammed, daughter of the host family who acted as an interpreter for Nebal and became good friends; Gayle Somerstein RN, MPH, MBA Administrator for Surgical Services for South Nassau Communities Hospital; and Dr. Roger L. Simpson of Long Island Plastic Surgical Group and Nassau University Medical Center’s Burn Center