Kechi: My name is Kechi Okwuchi
and I survived a plane crash.
I sustained third degree burns over 65% of my body.
All those people had died and
I just, I don't know I just felt
so heavy.
I made a decision
while in that hospital bed
that I would spend my life living
as
fully as possible.
That was the best way for me
to keep the memories
of those that passed away alive.
My burn scars do not define me.
They are definitely a big part of me
but they are not everything.
Life before the accident
was a lot of fun.
I grew up in Nigeria
which is my home country
and I spent my first 16 years there.
When I started high school,
which was a boarding school,
I made a lot of friends there that had become life long friends.
I was a really good looking teenager and
I was aware of it.
So obviously I had a lot of confidence from that.
I was traveling home
for Christmas holidays
with 60 other students from my high school
in Abuja Nigeria.
Ijeoma: I was at the airport
with all of the other parents.
It wasn't a new thing, this is what we always did.
We'd wait at the airport
for the kids to come in.
Kechi: Once the descent started,
that was when everything kind of started to get crazy.
It started with just a few bumps here and there
and just some turbulence but then eventually
it became very extreme, and people started to freak out.
And that was when we realized that something was wrong.
I remember
there was a lot of screaming and chaos.
I never got a chance to feel anything further than that shock.
Before I knew it, there was this like loud metal scrapping sound
and
and that's literally the last thing I remember before I blacked out.
Ijeoma: About 20 minutes past the time the plane was supposed to land,
we hadn't heard anything.
And after some time, we saw that there was so much activity all over the airport
and we kind of all had the inkling that something was seriously wrong.
And then the word came
that the plane had crashed.
When I first saw Kechi in the hospital,
first of all, I was very thankful that she was alive,
because at that time we had heard that everybody had died from the crash.
So my first feeling was
was gratitude.
I was just so grateful to God
that she was alive.
Kechi: I was kept in the South African Hospital in Johannesburg for seven months.
I sustained third degree burns over 65% of my body
which means everything from my scalp to my toes
burned except for my torso.
So my tummy, my back, these are the areas they took skin from
to cover up the major areas of my body that burned.
I learned the truth about
how many people survived the accident
four months into my treatment.
I was so confused because
up until that moment, I had assumed that everyone was okay.
It's like I'm never going to see
my friends again that were in that plane.
I realized like the last time I saw them
was the last time period.
And
that shook me to the core.
All my friends are gone. All those people have died and
I remember I cried for days,
I cried for so long.
My family moved to Houston in 2007
primarily because of the level of
reconstructive surgery that I would have access to
here in America alone.
I have had over 120 surgeries and reconstructions over the years.
I remember the first time that I asked my mom
to show me my reflection.
After the accident, I was curious about how I now looked
because I knew it would be different.
Before the accident, you know my looks were everything,
I thought my looks were the reason why I was so confident.
She raised the mirror to my face, and I remember just looking at I could see
everything first of all was so pink.
Like I had no skin on my face.
So there was just like raw flesh.
I could still see some things that were familiar like my eyes,
my nose, my lips, like there were certain certain things about my features
that were there that just kind of
gave me this familiar feeling that I was looking at Kechi still.
That was the moment that I realized
that my scars do not define me.
That was the moment that I understood that whatever made me Kechi
obviously went way, way beyond my physical looks.
They're a big part of my identity, but they're not everything.
So I made a decision while in that hospital bed
that I would spend my life living
as fully as possible.
That was the best way for me to keep the memories
of those that passed away alive.
It was the best way to make them proud.
And more importantly, it was the best way to make
those they left behind proud.
I first started singing as a child,
I was singing in my church, children's choir.
But I only started seriously singing after the accident.
And this is because my voice actually changed significantly.
I don't know why, or how,
but I will never forget when I first sang after the accident,
and my mom just like whipped her head around like,
"What was that?"
And we both noticed like something was different.
Ijeoma: She has never had
voice training
because we never when she was growing up, we never thought her voice was going to be this good.
So it wasn't something to say
"Kechi's voice is really good. Let's get a voice coach."
No.
It was just a little girl who liked to sing.
But after her voice changed after the accident
It was incredible.
[Kechi Singing] Amazing grace
how sweet the sound.
Kechi: It was nice as a hobby.
I felt like I entertained friends and family with it
with my singing but
did I think I was good enough to like go on a music show
or become an artist or pursue music as a career?
No.
What are the chances of me
trying to get into this field looking the way that I do?
Which is so different?
Ijeoma: I mean,
ever her father was always on her
"Go do something with this voice"
"You have to do something with this voice."
You have to go on this show, go on that show."
Kechi wouldn't do a thing,
until her friends signed her up for AGT.
Kechi: America's Got Talent was
an incredible chapter in my life.
I ended up on the show because
one of my best friends signed me up without telling me.
That's how I ended up in America's Got Talent.
But the show did a great job within those three months
to teach me so much.
Now that I've had all this experience traveling and speaking
in so many different places to so many different kinds of audiences.
I meet people and I know that we are in a world that needs more of that kind of message
where people realize that their scars,
invisible or visible, do not define them. Their trauma doesn't define them.
My burn scars do not define me.
They are definitely a big part of me,
a big part of my story and my identity,
but they're not everything.
And in my experience, you know, when you're real,
real recognises real.
And I choose to be defined by my own standards of beauty and you should too.