When Basma Hameed was only 2-years-old she was burned in a terrible accident with hot cooking oil in her native country of Iraq. She suffered through more than 100 procedures including laser and plastic surgery, but after all of them she still ended up with very significant scarring. She was told nothing more could be done.
She tells CBC News, “I was told by my plastic surgeon that I needed to take my money and go on a vacation. For me, I felt like that wasn’t the end of the road. I truly believed that something else did exist. So I did a lot of research, and of course I went to school. I made sure I knew what I was getting myself into.”
One day she got her eyebrow tattooed to replace the one she had lost when burned. It was at that point she had an epiphany. If you could tattoo an eyebrow, why not tattoo discolored scars to match the original skin color? She began to work on herself to experiment.
She was able to completely transform her own face by carefully choosing the right pigment color to match her skin and tattooing it on. After going to school, she is now a certified para-medical tattoo specialist in Toronto and is now able to help other burn victims transform their burns and their confidence.
Most recently she began working on 17-year-old Samira Omar, who was horribly burned by a bullying incident at school. Schoolmates had beat her and then doused her with boiling water. She explains, “I remember I looked into the mirror when I was calling for help and I could see my skin completely hanging off me,” says the soft-spoken girl. “It just felt as if I’d been through hell and back.”
Samira thought she would be scarred for life until she heard about Hameed’s practice. Her scars are too new to begin working on now, but Hameed has taught her how to apply a scar concealer that she also developed.
She is helping one person at a time heal both physically and emotionally.
Watch her inspiring story below:
