March 2008, China Care visited 天平鎮籐縣，廣西。

I was with 何棠縣長 visiting one of the families living up on the hills when a child hopped into our vision. This one legged child immediately caught our attention for he was hopping without any aid. Not even a stick.

This was the beginning of our long journey with Lee Man Hoi 李萬海.

We eventually got to know Ah Hoi (亞海), as we now call him. A truck rolled over him one morning some 6 ago as he was walking to his school 3 kms down the road. He almost died. Some good doctor managed to mend his fractured skull and saved his life. They were not able to keep his leg. It was too badly mangled.

Villagers never thought Ah Hoi would walk again nor go to school. They thought he would simply wither into obscurity, like many in similar situations would have done.

But Ah Hoi was to prove them wrong.

He insisted on walking. When they told him they could not afford to get him a prosthetic leg because it was to cost RMB 40,000, he told them he would walk with the one good leg he has got.

When they told him he could no longer go to school because school was at the bottom of the hill and 3 km from where he lives and even with the 2 good legs he used to have, that would take him over 40 minutes each way, he told them he could hop just as fast.

And so he did. He hopped 40 minutes each way. Up and down the hill. Unaided. Everyday.

He insisted on going to school. He refused to wither away.

We eventually brought him to Hong Kong and fitted him with a false leg.

He was a little ambivalent initially. He thought it was easier for him to continue to hop rather then walk. But the doctor, the prosthetician and the physiotherapist who treated him all in their off hours and with great joy and love, all told him the same thing. He would damage his good leg with all the hopping.

He gradually learnt to exert all his body muscles to make this false leg work.

Never was it ever expected that sitting with one false leg could be such a mammoth task. Imagine a steel rod being tied to the side of your body and try sitting with this fixture. You then appreciate the agony that this 15 year old had to endure.

But he learnt without uttering a word of complaint. And he learnt well.

By the end of his 10th day in Hong Kong, he could sit and he would walk with 2 legs.

For the first time in 6 years, he wore 2 shoes.

Buying a new pair of shoes on his way home was yet another totally new experience.

Good luck, Ah Hoi.

We shall miss you.

We shall miss above all, your courage, your perseverance, your insistence in taking charge of your own life, and the pride you took in the endurance of pain.

We have all learnt so much from you.

Arthur Tso
13th November 2008

Video Highlights

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Photo Highlights