Kim Phuc is the ‘Girl in the Picture,’ 44 years later

The 2016 Dr. Bob Ewert Memorial Dinner had a very special keynote speaker.

Kim Phuc was nine years old when she was photographed running down a dirt road in South Vietnam. She’d just witnessed an American plane drop a load of napalm bombs on the temple she and her family had been hiding in for three days. Her clothes had been burned off by the napalm and, in the photo, she is screaming.

That was more than 40 years ago but Phuc remembers those moments in detail.

“The airplane got so fast, so loud and so close to me….I just [stood] there. I saw four bombs and then suddenly, I heard the noise…then, fire around me everywhere. I didn’t see anybody but fire.”

Seventeen years after the picture was taken, Phuc met the man who took it, photographer Nic Ut.

“I call him Uncle Ut. He seemed to me like a part of my family.”

Phuc says Ut visited her during her months long hospitalization for severe napalm burns.

She credits Ut with saving her life.

“Honestly, I realize that he saved my life. Not only took my picture but he did beyond his job. He put his camera down and he rushed me to the nearest hospital.”

Phuc lived under the communist regime in South Vietnam for years before seeking political asylum in Canada in 1992. She says she has much in common with the Syrian refugees Canada is now receiving.

“I relate to them so much because I’ve been a refugee myself. I notice how much hope I had in that time…seeking freedom. And I’m so thankful that Canada received me as a refugee.”

Phuc says that, despite the decades that have passed, refugees around the world still face the same situation she did.

“It’s a similar situation but a different time. I was 1992 now it’s 2016. It’s sad for me that, even [in] 2016, we have to deal with that.”

Phuc was named a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador in 1994 and now travels around the world, sharing her experience. She says she has a simple message for her audience every time she speaks.

“I can give people hope. Whatever happens in our life, we always have hope and [can] move on. And that is my message.”

This is Phuc’s first time in Prince George since emigrating to Canada. She says she’s excited to have the opportunity to visit the hometown of her biographer, Prince George author Denise Chong. Chong began interviewing Phuc shortly after she came to Canada; The Girl in the Picture was published in 1999.