nkomazana was attacked by a hyena earlier this year. he suffered life—threatening injuries. now, a team of volunteer doctors in south africa is battling to help rodwell by rebuilding his face. our world follows their groundbreaking work and rodwell�*s remarkable recovery. rodwell nkomazana was asleep outside church, in rural zimbabwe, when he was attacked by a hyena. against the odds, he survived. immediately, when i arrived, they exposed these wounds, and here was a young man with, i mean literally, no face. he is now headed to south africa for life—changing surgery. when i saw the first photographs of how horrendous the injury was, i decided that i would do whatever i could to help him. our world has been given exclusive access to follow rodwell�*s journey to recovery. a rare moment of rest and play for rodwell and his mother, shamiso. it's just four months since rodwell was attacked. rodwell was living with his grandmother, in rural zimbabwe, when early in may, they attended an all—night prayer vigil. it was here, under this tree, that rodwell was attacked. rodwell�*s injuries were so severe, it seemed unlikely he would survive. rodwell lives in a remote part of zimbabwe. it was nearly two days before he reached a referral hospital in the country's capital, harare. you could see that the entire upper lip was missing, and we could see the teeth, so this is someone who, i mean, when people look at out there, you would think that they are smiling, because you are seeing the teeth all the time. dr wayne manana is one of zimbabwe's top facial surgeons. he treated rodwell when he arrived. immediately when i arrived, they exposed these wounds, and here was a young man with, i mean literally, no face. one of the first things that we know very well, and that is grilled and taught, is the face carries the identity of a person, and when you lose the face, you have sort have lost your identity, so the face is like the first thing that someone looks at, even when you go to get national identity particulars, like passports or even a very basic thing like getting a selfie with your phone, we take it for granted. so we all came together, and we didn't waste time, we took him to theatre, and the priority on the first surgery was to preserve life, and we did that by ensuring that the airway is secure, by ensuring that there are no infections, because we were also worried, we were concerned that the bacteria or the germs inside the mouth of the hyena, we didn't know how poisonous or dangerous it is. the spotted hyena is known to attack humans, but this was the first time it had happened in rodwell�*s village. as human populations grow, conflict with wildlife is an increasing concern. hyenas are very common. if you look, the way people in rural areas, the way they stay, they stay very close to the wild areas, we are encroaching in their habitat, so we seem to be getting close to where they stay, so when they start looking for food, they come close to the communities. if maybe they have the opportunity of finding somebody sleeping, because that would be the best hunting place for it. if you are quiet, you are sleeping, and then it can decide on what to do on you. the surgeons in harare had saved rodwell�*s life, but his face had severe injuries. he had lost his nose, one eye and his upper lip. zimbabwe did not have the resources needed to try and reconstruct his face. with the help of donors who offered to pay for the trip, rodwell travelled to south africa. on this little clip we are seeing, waving bye—bye to everyone. very, very emotional i think for him and the staff. maqshuda kajee is one of the medical team who travelled to harare to collect him. i received a call on the 14th of may from a colleague of mine who was asking for assistance for rodwell. she sent me really graphic photographs saying that he was attacked on the 7th of may and he needed treatment in south africa, and that's where i got involved. there was lack of resources in zimbabwe for his treatment and for him to stand an optimal chance of leading a normal life, with reconstruction, rehabilitative therapy, he had to come to south africa — there was just no doubt about that. rodwell and his mother arrived injohannesburg at the end ofjune to begin his reconstructive surgery. so when he arrived, i remember him coming out of the ambulance, and he was lying on the stretcher with a little hoodie on, and he had a little ipad, and as they sort of wheeled him into the hospital, he was watching spongebob on the ipad, which is a very childlike thing to do, to kind ofjust ignore all of the adults in the room, and just what is ipad, so i remember thinking — and it was all bandaged — but he was still laughing at this little ipad, and ijust remember thinking many an adult would not handle tons of people around him with as much grace as a 9—year—old. i think that was when rodwell sort of revealed his character, and that he was a remarkable little soul that was just going to take everything in his stride and still approach everything with that sort of childlike innocence and excitement. are you ready for me? a team of more than 20 specialists, all of them working for free, started the slow process of rebuilding rodwell�*s face. this was a very heart—wrenching story. when i saw the first photographs of how horrendous the injury was, so ijust thought i could see where i could help, and do whatever i can, so i was very happy to offer my services pro bono and i think the rest of the team felt the same way. bye — bye. so the big procedures involved firstly identifying the big injuries, correcting all the fractures on the face, on the upper and lowerjaws, the orbit in which the left eye was housed originally, placing prosthetics into the nose or what would eventually become a nose on his left eye, and placing a large, what we call, a free flap to reconstruct the defect that was in place of his upper lip, so we had to use a piece of his thigh to reconstruct that part of his face. in august, two months after arriving in south africa, rodwell was discharged from hospital, but it's a long road to recovery. rodwell lost his left eye in the attack. he is now on his way for an appointment with an ocularist. you can see the pictures of all these people, they have had problems with their eyes, and everybody that you see here is wearing a prosthesis. all of these people, rodwell. gavin donald'sjob is to make rodwell a new eye. today he is making a template for the prosthesis. rodwell, when i put this cream, it's going to feel a little bit cold for you. it does take a bit of time to get this right, but if you consider the amount of time, the length of time you wear it, for spending a little while by us it is well worth it. this is going to give me the shape to manufacture rodwell�*s prosthesis. the aim of making these eye prosthetics is to try and match it as perfectly as what we can so that when you see the patient afterwards, you can't tell which eye it is. 0k, there we go. perfect, rodwell, you are a champion, you are very good. you really surprised me. let's trim off the excess. there we go. this is what i put in your eye. this is the shape of your eye, you see, and you were so good. and then i put it in here. it comes out here so when you come to me next time, i am going to have something that is going to look like this but it is going to be for you. it's only going to fit you. but you were a very good boy, i'm very proud of you. good young man. thank you. thank you so much. what we will be doing is we'll be designing and planning of this nasal prosthesis and ultimately in his case, what it's going to mean is we will take some impressions of the implants that are currently in his face, and we'll make a substructure, made of chrome cobalt, and onto that we will use magnets to locate his nose so that he just needs to place it there and the magnets will lock the two together. this impression will then be used to make a plaster model of his face so that allows us to then bolder up the structure that we intend to make for him in back. rodwell has not been out in public since the attack, but on the way back, dr mia decides to take rodwell and shamiso on the train. it is an important moment for rodwell. we are very glad to see rodwell on the train, looking out of of the window, amongst other passengers on the train, and it gives you a sense of that this child will eventually integrate well, back into society, which is one of our major aims here. so today is all about that and establishing him feeling confident out in the world again. to build rodwell�*s confidence further, his mother is taking him to meet to other young men who were attacked by hyenas. they also suffered life—changing facial injuries. hello. how are you? pleased to meet you. hello, rodwell. we've both been through the same experience as rodwell. obviously way back, more than five years back. i remember, i was attacked on the 12th ofjune 2011. it is tough being young and going through something like this. i remember being so young and just kind of wanting to reclude into my family's arms, you know. how old were you when it happened? i was 12. even closer to his age than i was. i was 15. and he is nine. i think his situation is more severe than i think both of ours. for me, as a 12—year—old boy, i had not actually gone through puberty yet and there was still so much ahead of me and had no idea what was out there in the big bad world and i actually learned so much from my attack, and i matured so much, and it made me who i am today, completely. this is basically my road of recovery. and it is actually kind of nice to look at it now, because you can reflect on where you came from and where you are now. you see progress. you forget quite quickly. words get lost, and all the feelings. i know in the evenings, you go to sleep and you close your eyes, you go back to that day. does it happen? yes. what do you do? what do you do when you close your eyes, look for the good things every single day, and every day there is some mercy, every day something good will happen but you have to be open to see it. it has been two weeks since rodwell�*s last visit to the ocularist, gavin. he's now back to get his new eye fitted. look here, it is for you, this one. you see? we put colour, the same as your colour. we can put for you. today, we have got this new nose that we are going to be fitting on and we're going to connect it onto those implants that you have placed already. ok, are we ready? applause. so the fit is excellent and that is exactly what we wanted and we have sealed off the defect quite nicely. from a colour point of view, because all the grafted tissue comes from different parts of his body, they all have different colours but we still have to fine tune that. we stain little parts of the nose to match the different parts of the flap that come from different parts of his body. we're 99% there. the last bit is just cosmetic. it's just to make sure that it blends in with different parts of his flap. try to breathe through your nose. we are going to be removing the tracheotomy tube. this will allow him to breathe entirely from his nose. and this little track that' opened up here in the last few months, will now start to close. so in other words, he'll start breathing entirely through his nose and mouth. he has come such a long way since we first got you. how do you feel? are you ok? soon, rodwell and shamiso will return to zimbabwe. rodwell still needs more surgery and his future is uncertain but shamiso is hopeful. it will amplify the inner man in himself and understand at the end of the day, there are more important things in life. i hope it isjust such a beautiful success story where he is able to say one day that lots of people gave me a second chance, they believed in me. i would hope that this . journey he has been on, of reconstruction, of healing, will be a platform or a - foundation for him to build on. and for him to set goals for the rest of his life. l the situation we are in now, can only get better, and as long as you focus on the positives and not all the negatives in it, it is going to be an amazing outcome. hello. you're not imagining it. it is exceptionally mild at the moment. we will continue to remain in very mild air for the first few days of the new year. notjust the uk, though, but many of our european neighbours have seen record temperatures for new year's eve, certainly records fell in parts of poland, austria, germany and the netherlands. and for new year's day, once again, we could see records being rivalled or toppled, for the day that is. this cold front will push across the uk, through new year's day, quite a skinny little weather front, not much temperature contrast across it and because it is such a narrow band of rain, actually it will not stick around in many areas for very long, perhaps an hour or so of rain working its way from west to east across england and wales. these showers for the west of scotland and northern ireland perhaps more persistent affairs, but look at the temperatures again. quite a lot of sunshine through the day and widely highs in the mid teens. squally showers for the south—east of england through saturday evening, into the small hours of sunday, some heavier showers, moving in from the west in wales and the midlands. a very mild night again. these are the temperatures, more typical of daytime for this time of year. sunday has wetter weather again on the cards for england and wales and some blustery winds. we could see some intense showers working their way through. the driest and brightest weather for sunday will be for scotland and northern ireland. and then on monday, we fall into a bit of a pincer movement in terms of our weather across the uk. we will see this weather front to the south trying to push some rain into this area of low pressure in the north, trying to turn things increasingly unsettled, between the two, some breezy conditions, but i think the best of any sunny spells are for the midlands, the north of england, but to the very south and very north of the uk, there could be some heavier, more persistent rain. a little cooler as well on monday, but temperature still slightly above average for the time of year. however, for tuesday, it looks like we are going to flip around and pick up a northerly wind and that will bring about a very dramatic change in the way things feel. you will have to add on the effect of the wind—chill, but temperatures in edinburgh just 4 degrees on tuesday, down to 8 degrees in london. so, is a big contrast in our weather to come over the next few days ahead. hello this is bbc with the latest headlines on pbs the us around the world. countries around the world are seeing in the new year with a bang — but some are holding scaled back celebrations — to try to stop covid spreading. this is the scene in athens at the famous acropolis as the clock strikes midnight — more from athens in a moment. entire neighbourhoods in the us state of colorado have been engulfed by flames as wildfires force tens of thousands to leave their homes. many families having minutes, minutes to get whatever they could, their pets, their kids in the car and leave. their pets, their kids in the car and leave. the uk health service warns of significant pressure

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