Football legend Graeme Souness told Pride of Scotland winner Isla Grist 'I love you' after the brave schoolgirl scooped Teenager of Courage at the Daily Record's Pride of Scotland Awards.
The 70-year-old said Isla, 14, had changed his life as he slammed the treatment of her painful skin condition epidermolysis bullosa (EB) which is also known as “butterfly skin”.
Liverpool, Scotland and Rangers icon Graeme recently took on a mammoth charity swim across the English Channel, raising more than £1.1million after being inspired by Isla.
Speaking at the event, he said Isla - who won the award for her bravery and service to charity - was a special human being.
He said: "“Five years ago I had the good fortune to come across this young lady and she changed my life. It’s very easy to use superlatives. I have been blessed by meeting this young woman.
"This young woman is the most impressive human being I’ve ever met in the seventy years I’ve been in this planet. We in this room are in the company of greatness."
He added: “You are a unique human being. I love you. What she is going through you cannot see. It’s like someone has taken a blow torch to the body. No one ever told me about this disease. This is the worst thing that can ever happen to you.”
Graeme also criticised the treatment for EB, saying people are using e45 - a cream that he used to use for dry skin fifty years ago.
He said: “We have to find a drug that ultimately cures EB. What we are trying to do in the meantime is repurpose drugs. I get angry when I hear this.
"We were in the Houses of Parliament a couple of weeks ago. There’s different forms of EB and a lesser form of it. Half a dozen women were there and I asked them 'What do you do for treatment'?
"And they said 'Nothing really'."
Graeme was then told some sufferers used e45 to treat the condition.
"I was using e45 fifty years ago because I had dry skin," he said. "That is how much we’ve pressed and challenged and tried to find relief for the children who are suffering from it. We’ve not moved an inch.
"That has to be wrong.”
Isla's skin can tear or blister at the slightest touch due to the agonising condition and cash raised by Graeme for charity Debra will be used to help her and other sufferers.
The charity swim took took 12 hours and 17 minutes to cross the 21-mile stretch of the channel. Graeme, who was joined Isla's dad Andy, and four others.
Isla, from the Black Isle near Inverness, was said to be“more concerned about her parents and her sister than herself” despite her painful condition.
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