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The photo of an unclothed girl running in the streets after
suffering napalm burns remains one of the most iconic images of the
Vietnam War.

The girl in the 1972 photo — 46-year-old Kim Phuc Phan Thai
(known to many as Kim Phuc) — recently shared her story with
victims at the Phoenix Society for Burn Survivors and shared a
message of hope,

according to HealthDay .

“Sixty-five percent of my body got burned,” Phuc told HealthDay.
Her face wasn’t touched by the napalm, but she had third-degree
burns on her back and left arm, which left her with scars and
pain.

Phuc said she was in a burn unit in Saigon for 14 months and had
17 operations.

“I should be dead,” Phuc said, “But I was spared…so now I
think, ‘I cannot change something that happened to me already. But
I can change the meaning.’”

While Phuc said she still suffers from pain from her damaged
nerves in her body, she called her pain her “protection.”

“It humbles me, and helps me to never take my life for granted,”
she said. “And to share my story.”

Phuc, who currently lives in Toronto, Canada, and has two
children, has become a public speaker and United Nations Goodwill
Ambassador and hopes to become a living inspiration to the
world.

Phuc and her family lived in the village of Trang Bang north of
Saigon when the bombs were dropped by the Vietnamese Air Force. Two
of her cousins were killed in the attack, but Phuc was helped by
Associated Press photographer Nick Ut who shot the photo. Ut won a
Pulitzer Prize for the photo.

Napalm is a mixture of gasoline and a thickening
agent and was widely used by the U.S. military during
the Vietnam War. Victims usually suffer severe second-degree burns
or third-degree burns due to the adhesive properties of napalm.