BURNED BOY GOES THROUGH FIRST SURGERY.

Byline: Steve Carney Daily News Staff Writer

The composure Denis Nefedova showed in previous days melted away before dawn Monday, as the hour neared for the first in a yearlong series of operations on his burned skin.

The 10-year-old Russian boy was sobbing as he shuffled into the operating room at the Grossman Burn Center in Sherman Oaks. Denis suffered severe scarring in a household accident last year, when a gasoline explosion disfigured his face and hands.

Draped in a bedsheet and small blanket Monday, he called for his mother while Dr. A. Richard Grossman held his shoulders.

``Everything will be all right,'' his mother told him. ``If you don't want to, we won't do it.''

But he wanted to.

Still, the boy said he was scared, said he wanted his mother, the pleas coming out in sorrowful hiccups.

A few minutes later he was unconscious on the operating table, and Grossman was cutting away a flap of scar tissue from his right cheek about the size of a slice of bread.

``It was much easier than I thought it was going to be,'' Grossman told the boy's mother after the operation. Tears in her eyes, Janna Nefedova thanked him.

Denis was alone at his family home on Sakhalin Island, just north of Japan, when a candle he lit tipped over and ignited fumes from gasoline being stored in the apartment. The blast engulfed his head and hands, and the scar tissue that grew from his burns constricted his face and left his hands gnarled.

Dr. Michael Pomo, a North Hollywood physician volunteering on Sakhalin Island, heard about Denis' case and contacted his longtime colleague, Grossman, the renowned burn specialist.

Grossman is donating his services, and the Children's Burn Foundation of Sherman Oaks is contributing $50,000 to cover other expenses related to his treatment. Armed with a newfound hope, Denis and his mother came to America two weeks ago.

``She spent probably a good nine months to a year trying to get him some help in Russia,'' said Diane Barackman, Pomo's sister and a surgical technology director at Concorde Career Institute in North Hollywood. ``She was pretty much hopeless he was going to be like that forever.''

But Grossman assured her the treatment and expertise available in the United States will surpass the best Russian doctors could do. Monday's surgery at the burn center began a series of a dozen or more operations on his seared face and hands that will take about a year.

During the 90-minute operation, Grossman stitched cadaver skin onto the boy's exposed cheek, to serve as a natural bandage and stimulate new cell growth.

In his next procedure, Thursday morning, Grossman will take skin from the boy's thigh and graft it onto his cheek, then cover the exposed thigh with a thin layer of skin from the other side of his thigh.

In about six weeks, if the work on his right cheek is successful, doctors will repeat the procedure on his left side. Reconstruction of his hands and nose will come in the following months.

``He knows he's going to get better,'' said Nefedova. ``He's not scared of the surgeon. He's scared of the anesthesia and the shots.''

Barackman added, ``He's just been through so much. He just figures this is going to be more pain.''

Grossman said removing the scar tissue on the boy's cheek and around his mouth will return flexibility to his face, and enable him to eat more normally. Denis could barely fit a spoon in his mouth before.

In the recovery room, he lurched upright and complained of the pain in his face when he awoke from the anesthesia. He called again for his mother and she clucked her tongue to soothe him.

``He looks like a snowman,'' Grossman said of the large bandage cradling Denis' head. A moment later, after the translation, Nefedova smiled.

In her dreams, she said she sees her son's face restored, with only small scars on his cheeks.

``She's dreaming all the time he'll have a normal face,'' said volunteer translator Tamara Sokoloff, a retired nurse from Culver City. ``She hopes that's how it's going to be. She's hoping for the best.''

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos

Photo: (1--Color) Dr. A. Richard Grossman, left, anesthesiologist Jeffrey Peak and surgical technician Curtis Peek wrap Denis Nefedova after the operation.

Charlotte Schmid-Maybach/Daily News

(2) NEFEDOVA