A 6-year old Cambodian boy born with his jaw fused shut uttered his first word after a medical team assembled in Singapore by the Vancouver-based charity Rose performed five hours of corrective surgery on him, according to a news story in the Vancouver Sun.
"At first we didn't think we were going to be able to get the jaw open because it seemed that the mandible was rubbing against the maxilla and creating an obstruction," a volunteer who attended the surgery told the Sun. But, "they just cut off the condyle from the mandible and his jaw just popped open."
The boy's rehabilitation will include extensive dentistry, speech therapy, and education, and will take longer and be more complex than the operation itself, Will Grut, PhD, founder of Rose, said before the surgery.
But for now, "we are over the moon," he told the Sun.
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