❤️ He was a British soldier serving in Bosnia when he learned about a 4 year old boy who desperately needed help.
That meeting would connect their lives for decades.
In 2003, Sergeant Wayne Ingram met Stefan Savić, a little boy born with an extremely severe facial cleft that had pushed his eyes apart and dramatically affected the development of his nose and face.
🥹 Stefan needed highly specialized surgery that his family could not afford.
Wayne could have returned home and simply remembered him.
Instead, he started fundraising.
His efforts eventually helped bring Stefan to London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital, where surgeon David Dunaway and his team performed an extraordinary 12 hour operation to reconstruct parts of his face. ❤️
But one surgery wasn’t enough.
As Stefan grew, he returned for further reconstructive procedures, while Wayne continued raising money and supporting him.
Over roughly 13 years, the fundraising eventually reached around £160,000.
By 2016, Stefan had completed another major stage of his facial reconstruction.
And Wayne was still there.
🥹 What began as one soldier seeing a photograph of a child in Bosnia became a friendship that continued long after the uniform and hospital rooms were gone.
More than 20 years later, Stefan is an adult, plays music and remains in contact with the man who decided that simply feeling sorry for him wasn’t enough.
❤️ Wayne wasn’t Stefan’s doctor.
He wasn’t family.
He simply saw a little boy who needed a chance and decided to do something about it.
How many lives could change if more people refused to walk away when they realized they had the power to help?
He was a British soldier
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