Special suit allows child to play in the sun

BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. (WOFL FOX 35) - Tomas Zeman loves playing with his older brother Ronald, but the six-year-old Slovakian child is a prisoner of the sun, because of a rare skin disease.

Tomas has Xeroderma Pigmentosum. Which means his skin cannot repair damage made from ultraviolet light, which is contained in the sun. So if he steps out into the sun, even for a few minutes, his skin will blister up, and potentially become malignant skin cancer.

Marek Vozar is a production manager filming a story about Tomas for the popular Slovakian TV show "Seventh Heaven," which helps people in his country with severe or life threatening diseases. The show reached out to Terry Breese, the owner of the California-based non-profit company Solar Protective Factory, which manufactures special protective clothing that blocks 99.8 percent of the harmful ultraviolet light to which Tomas is allergic.

At the request of the TV show, Breese flew to Cape Canaveral to meet Tomas and his family, and we were invited to watch as Breese gave the sun-allergic child two sun-proof body suits at the TV shows expense.

Once geared up, you can't see much of Thomas, but neither can the sun, and that just brightened his mother's face. The 29-year-old Slovakian mother of three could not afford the $2,000 hand made body suits for her child.

The first thing Tomas did, was escape; to the outside for the very first time, with his older brother by his side. Now, the Slovakian family is free to explore the Space Coast together, and anywhere else under the sun.