Manny's amazing recovery

Five-year-old girl Elisabeth Manuel Banbin Musu, known affectionately as Manny, (above) smiles outside the critical care unit at Singapore's Mount Elizabeth Hospital. Three weeks ago, photographs of unconscious Manny bleeding from her wounds flashed around the globe. On Saturday, the survivor of last month's bomb blast outside the Australian Embassy in Jakarta smiled for the cameras. Manny, who beat the odds to survive her serious injuries, can now sit upright in a wheelchair.

It was the first time since her recovery that Manny has been photographed. She was initially shy, hiding her face under her white embroidered cotton hat or behind her packet drink.

Manny's rapid recovery was a miracle, said her neurosurgeon Ng Puay Yong, part of a team of five doctors who treated her. "When she came here, she was almost dead. Both her pupils were not reacting, which means that statistically, she had a less than 5 percent chance of making it," Wang said.

He credits Manny's recovery to three factors -- luck, her "progressive" deterioration that gave the doctors time to fight back, and the medical team's skill and commitment.

The doctors carried out two operations, one on Sept. 10 to remove a blood clot and bomb fragments from her brain, abdomen and limbs, and another on Sept. 20 to clean the wounds and remove the stitches. Therapists also helped her regain her speech and mobility.

Manny will leave for Italy with her Italian father, Manuel Musu, on Monday after Australian man David Norman decided not to fight for her custody, ending a month-long paternity tussle.

She was among 182 people injured in the blast that killed her mother, Maria Eva Kumalawati, and nine other victims. -- Straits Times Interactive on Sunday