Haitian teenager receives new hip, new lease on life
Posted on Feb 23, 2012
On February 17, NBC's Connecticut affiliate interviewed Smysshell Delva, PIH's Right to Health Care program's newest patient. We're happy to report that Mr. Delva is doing well, and recovering with a host family in Cambridge, MA.
Eighteen-year-old Smysshell Delva is taking his first steps across a personal finish line. The young man from Haiti has just undergone hip replacement surgery at Saint Francis Hospital. It’s one of the first times he’s walking without pain in more than two years, after the deadly 2010 earthquake that devastated his country.
"One of the walls of the school is collapsing down, hits him on the back and throws him,” described his father Louicito Delva.
According to his father, Smysshell was practicing with his basketball team after school when the quake struck. Out of his teammates with him on the court that day, Smysshell was the only one who made it—albeit badly injured in his right leg.
Read "Haitian Man Gets New Start in CT".
Learn more about PIH's Right to Health Care program.
