Injury Date: July 5, 2002
Injuries: loss of left arm and left leg below the knee, internal injuries
District: Quang Binh
Intake Date: July 5, 2002
CPI Assistance: Medical, Nutrition & transportation fees. Will provide prosthetics and rehab when he recovers from surgery
Occupation: child

The coastal district of Bo Trach was heavily bombed during wartime, due to it being a relay point along the coast for arms, munitions and personnel being shipped to the south of Viet Nam. Naval bombardment, B-52 strikes and wide dispersal of cluster munitions were daily occurrences, and Quet Thang village in Thanh Trach Commune was no exception.

Typically, morning chores for 14 year-old Phan Van Rot start with a walk down to the stream near his house to check the weir traps for a fresh catch of fish. Each evening the traps are set out by Rot and his father, and each morning, while his father, mother and older siblings go to the rice fields, Rot checks the traps.

The previous day some other villagers had repaired a small dam on the stream, breached by a heavy rain a few days earlier. The heavy rains must have washed a cluster bomb downstream to Rot's traps.

When Rot finished checking the traps and collecting the fish on a string, he anchored them with a rock in the pool: something round had caught his eye. He bent down and hefted the object in his hand and it exploded.

The cluster bomb took Rot's left hand above the wrist and left leg below the knee. His lower intestines were perforated, and when he was loaded into a single-piston truck and transported to the district center, neither his family nor neighbors expected to see him alive again.

Fortunately, CPI had recently reached agreements to assist new accidents survivors in Quang Binh Province, and was notified immediately by authorities at Viet Nam Cuba Hospital in Dong Hoi Town, Quang Binh, where Rot was taken for treatment.

Over the next few weeks he struggled with bouts of peritonitis as his other wounds healed, and he lost several kilograms. The internal infection finally under control, Rot was released and CPI transported him back to his home village where the scene was jubilant at his return.

In a few months, Rot will have his colostomy reversed, and after he recuperates from that surgery, CPI will provide support for his prosthetics and rehabilitation at Da Nang Orthopedic Center.

Read a letter from Rot's mother here.