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SALT LAKE CITY -- A courageous teenager from Guyaquil, Ecuador, is back in Salt Lake City to get another new set of arms and a leg.
Victoria Salcedo Portocarrero is just like any other 14 year old. She may have lost her arms and a leg in a near electrocution nine years ago, but that's not about to hold her back -- especially since a festive cultural celebration is waiting for her later this year, one set aside in Ecuador for every teen when they turn 15.
"Victoria has moved ahead with a great deal of courage," Victoria's mother, Beatriz Portocarrero, told KSL News through a translator. "She's been very courageous. She participates in all activities. She's very much alive. She involves herself with her friends."
Victoria comes to Shriners Hospital in Salt Lake every 18 months or so to get fitted for new artificial limbs. While here, she stays with Shaun and Christina Myers -- Christina acts as their interpreter.
When Victoria Salcedo Portocarrero, 14, was six years old she lost both arms and her left leg when a metal pole she was playing with outside her home in Guyaquil, Ecuador touched a high-voltage electric wire. She was introduced to Shaun and Christina Myers of Ogden in 2005 when the couple was in Ecuador for humanitarian work. The couple helped Victoria get to Utah and Shriners Hospital for Children agreed to cover the cost of the limbs. Victoria was first fitted with prosthetics four years ago and has returned several times for her limbs to be replaced or refitted. Victoria is an example of how kids often adapt to challenges. She can empathize well with the victims of Haiti's earthquake -- all those who've lost limbs there.
"Many of them, she knows, have lost their parents, and many of them may be sent to orphanages to be left there without their limbs -- a difficult road ahead of them," Christina said.
Shriners Hospital makes prosthetics all the time, and now it may be doing even more for young people in Haiti. A few victims of the earthquake may come here to receive limbs, but there will need to be a more permanent solution in Haiti.
"Especially with the kids, they're going to need consistent replacements. They're going to have to have some facility down there to keep everybody going," said Pete Kapelke, who works with prosthetics at Shriners Hospital.
Shriners Hospital in Salt Lake alone makes 300 to 400 prosthetic limbs per year, with another 3,000 orthopedic braces. The service works well for hosted kids like Victoria, but what Haiti will need down the road goes way beyond this.
Victoria returns Friday to Ecuador. She will celebrate her 15th birthday in what is called a " Quinceañera" 10 months from now.
E-mail: eyeates@ksl.comi>
