
A young lad branded "turtle boy" because of a huge shell-like growth on his body is finally free of the birthmark thanks to a British surgeon. Little Didier Montalvo suffered from Congenital Melanocytic Nevus, which meant a mole grew so large that it almost covered his entire back.
The six-year-old from Colombia was teased and banned from going to school because of the growth.
Locals in his village feared that he had been cursed by evil forces because he was conceived during an eclipse. Also, his mum, Luz, could not afford to pay for surgery to help rid her son of the birthmark blighting his life. However, when plastic surgeon Neil Bulstrode, from Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, heard about the boy's plight, he and his team flew to Bogotá to operate on him.
They eventually managed to remove the mole with a series of skin grafts.