A Scarred Boy Receives Surgeon’s Kindest Cuts

In a darkened hotel room in Santa Ana, an 8-year-old Mexican boy watches cartoons and waits for his skin graft to heal.

In an accident a year ago at his home in Teluca, Mexico, Jose Antonio Perez Cruz was splashed in the face and badly burned by sulfuric acid. The burn left ugly red scars on his nose and damaged his left eyelid so severely that it wouldn’t close.

But on Monday Jose got the reconstructive surgery his parents couldn’t afford.

A new charity, the Mexican Relief Fund of Los Angeles, adopted Jose and persuaded two hotels, an airline, three doctors and United Western Medical Centers in Santa Ana to donate more than $5,000 in services for the boy and his mother, Euginia Cruz de Perez.

‘Robin Hood Surgery’

Santa Ana plastic surgeon Val Lambros, who repaired Jose’s eyelid, said he was delighted to contribute to the cause. “A friend of ours calls this kind of surgery Robin Hood surgery,” Lambros said. “What most of us do in Orange County is cosmetic surgery, but this is what I was trained for: a reconstructive problem. It’s fun not to let those skills die.”

Jose’s mother said he was injured last summer at the home they rented from a local plumber in the small town of Teluca. Jose found a small jar of the plumber’s and, mistaking it for vanilla extract, tried to open it, she said. Sulfuric acid spattered on his face. Local doctors put drops in the boy’s eye but said they could do little about the burns.

Jose’s face healed, but the acid left fierce red scars above his lip and on his nose, Cruz de Perez said, and she worried about the left eyelid that did not close. Also, Jose was unhappy at school because some of his second-grade classmates taunted him about his scars.

Jose was the relief fund’s first case, said Judy Pohlmann, a West Hollywood securities dealer who, with “Miami Vice” star Edward James Olmos, is co-director of the fund. The two had been working with a Florida relief agency to help children injured in the September, 1985, earthquake in Mexico City. They recently learned of other children who needed help, so they formed a charity that accepts in-kind contributions rather than cash.

After learning of Jose through a Mexico City relief organization, Pohlmann and Olmos arranged for American Airlines to donate air fare to Los Angeles for Jose and his mother. They asked the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel to put up Jose and his mother last weekend.

When Jose underwent reconstructive surgery at United Western Medical Centers Monday, the hospital room was donated. Lambros, plastic surgeon Bruce Dubin and anesthesiologist Susan Powers all worked for free.

Now, while Jose spends the next eight days recuperating, he and his mother are staying free at Santa Ana’s Saddleback Inn.

There, a patch over his left eye, Jose watches TV, plays with his trucks and tries to move as little as possible so his skin graft will heal. The boy said he hopes to go to Disneyland but is confined to quarters for now.

“I nixed him,” Lambros said. “I didn’t want him doing the Matterhorn or Space Mountain. I want him growing his skin graft.”

Euginia Cruz de Perez said she and her son didn’t mind the confinement and were grateful for all the help. She had searched for medical aid for Jose in Mexico but “it was taking too long and it was too expensive.” One small skin graft, performed last year at a Mexico City hospital, didn’t take, she said.

On Monday, Lambros took a small flap of skin from behind Jose’s ear and sewed it above his left eye. If that graft takes, Jose will probably have to return to Santa Ana in about six months for additional surgery on the eyelid and his other scars.

“He’ll never be normal,” Lambros said. “But he is going to look a lot better than he was.”

“It will make a big difference,” Cruz de Perez added. “He will not be perfect when he grows up, but an attempt was made. The best was done to get him back to normal.”