Toddler survives after being partly eaten by wild dogs in jungle
A two-year-old boy has survived being mauled by wild dogs and partly eaten after he was abandoned as a newborn baby in a Vietnamese forest.
The toddler will now undergo world first surgery to rebuild his badly damaged groin area and he will also be fitted with an artificial limb.
Thien Nhan, who has no penis and testicles remaining, will undergo a series of pioneering operations until he is 15 years old.
Doctors hope the new techniques will also help other patients included wounded soldiers back from Afghanistan and Iraq.
The boy's adoptive mother, a Vietnamese journalist called Tran Mai Anh, 35, has saved him from a life of poverty and neglect.
Describing how he was found deep in the woods, she said: "His mother wrapped him in leaves and put leaves over him when he was three days old.
"She was only 17 and she was poor and didn't know how to look after him."
The teenager then ran away from her remote village of Tam Thach in the northern Quanh Nam province.
Thien Nhan lay for days too young even to move and could easily have died of starvation.
But he was discovered by villagers badly mauled and bleeding.
When Thien Nhan reached the main hospital he was very sick and needed an immediate blood transfusion.
"The doctors did not think he would survive at all," said Mai Anh. "Everyone thought he would die.
"But they tried to save him by amputating his right leg. He was left with just a stump.
"He might have died in the operation, but he survived.
"They sewed together the wounds they could in his groin area. But he was left with no private parts."
Mai Anh and her husband Phung Quang Nghinh, 35, who is also a journalist, organised hospital treatment.
As he recovered, the couple began the long process of trying to adopt him and take him back to their home in Hanoi, and he went to live with them in May.
Doctors in Vietnam fitted a fixed prosthetic limb which allowed Thien Nhan to stand.
"He wears it all the time when we're out but he can't move on it," said his mum.
"It's more for appearance, and to help him stand straight and be more balanced.
"Now he can stand up with the leg, even or without it if he has something to hold on to.
"But as soon as we're back home, Thien Nhan wants his leg off again so he can crawl around and play with his brothers."
Now the family hope top prosthetic specialists at the North Western Medical Center in Chicago can create a new bionic limb for their son.
The family began a fundraising effort in Vietnam and Thien Nhan's case was taken up by the international charity Kids Without Borders.
People from around the world are donating funds towards his surgery - but the full cost is yet unknown.
Now specialists including Dr Joe Rosen at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Memorial Hospital in New Hampshire are investigating how to help the little boy.
An internal examination under anaesthetic at the hospital last week showed Thien Nhan actually has part of his penis remaining inside his body, along with 2cm of uretha.
Doctors say this will be a very positive foundation for the eventual genital reconstruction.
Thien Nhan will also later need a hormone test to see whether he needs testosterone injections as he grows.
"We don't know exactly how the reconstruction will take place yet," said Mai Anh.
"But doctors are investigating the best way to do it.
Thien Nhan and his family will also soon visit doctors in Chicago who will later build his new artificial leg.
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