Toddler Survives Plane Crash

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A three-year-old girl is being called a miracle baby after being found alive in the wreck of a plane crash near Golden, B.C., yesterday.

The girl, Kate Williams, was the lone survivor of a crash on Sunday that claimed the lives of her grandfather and his business associate.

Rescue crews found Kate strapped into a child’s car seat inside an upside-down airplane buried in snow on the edge of an icy riverbank.

“I think the care that was taken in placing the child in there, that extra protection, is what basically, I think, saved her life,” Golden RCMP Sgt. Marko Shehovac told CTV News.

The little girl’s grandfather, Allen D. Williams, was flying the plane. He is remembered as “a visionary and a leader in the consulting engineering industry throughout Alberta and across the country”.

Williams, 65, the CEO and founder of an Edmonton engineering firm, was in B.C. for a business retreat with Steven T. Sutton, the company’s chief financial officer.

They were flying back to Edmonton when Williams’ Cessna 172 crashed an hour after taking off from Golden around 1 p.m. local time, killing both men.

Hospital officials say that Kate suffered non-life threatening head injuries and was reunited with her parents in the southeastern B.C. community of Golden.

She was admitted to the Alberta Children’s Hospital in Calgary, for overnight observation.

Rescuers said that bad weather and nightfall hampered the search efforts.

Members of Golden’s search-and-rescue team said when Kate was recovered on Sunday she was scared and cried for her teddy bear.

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Flight Attendant Wins Award For Saving 25 Weeker On Airplane

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We covered the amazing story of a baby born 30,000 ft in the air, 15 weeks premature last month.

A flight attendant played an integral part of his survival by clearing his lungs with a straw.

The BBC reported today that Carol Miller (pictured, right), the quick thinking flight attendant, has won a top award for saving the life of Alfie Delemere.

Nicola Delemere and her husband Dominic, 28, were on a flight to Manchester in April when she started bleeding, it was then that Carol came to the rescue.

She asked Nicola to remove her pants after feeling the baby’s head and that’s when he just popped out.

The crew on the plane made contact with medical staff on the ground and was walked through what to do.

The fight attendant clamped the umbilical cord and performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation until the airplane landed at Gatwick and the baby rushed to intensive care.

She was told yesterday that she had won a Pride of Britain award when Peter Kay turned up at Manchester Airport to give her the good news.

Alfie who is now fit and well went home in August after a stay in hospital. His parents say that:

“We really can’t begin to thank Carol enough for saving Alfie’s life.”

Related Articles:

25 Week Old Baby Born On Airplane: Still Thriving

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34 Week Baby: Pronounced Dead, Then Found Alive

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This is the second time I have covered this type of story.

A UK woman went into labor prematurely last week and gave birth to a baby in her home, where paramedics found it and pronounced the newborn dead.

An American Medical Response ambulance arrived at 5:20 a.m., where paramedics found Jessica Gonzalez unconscious on the bathroom floor, Officer Dale Eubanks said. They found the newborn baby in the toilet and checked his vital signs while firefighters took the woman from the bathroom to the ambulance, he said.Paramedics initially thought the baby was dead, and they placed him and some towels in a pink wash basin they found in the bathroom, then placed the basin in a box, Eubanks said. Mother and baby were then taken to the hospital.

At the hospital, an employee was checking on the baby’s body when she heard a “weak cry,” Eubanks said. Hospital workers immediately started treatment on the baby boy.

The baby is currently in hospital and in stable condition

The saddest part of the story and the reason the mom probably went into preterm labour: The mother is facing two felony counts of child abuse after tests showed methamphetamine and marijuana in the baby’s blood.

Related Articles:

Micropreemie Refused To Stop Fighting
Micropreemie Defied 1000 to 1 odds

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Amazing Baby Lives 120 Days With Artificial Heart

Every time I find an amazing baby story I think that it can’t be topped, somehow another amazing baby comes along and shows us that they have what it takes to survive through ANYTHING! Jack Vellam, 13 months old, left hospital today after undergoing a life-saving treatment in which he was kept alive by an artificial heart for 120 days.

He became the youngest patient to be connected to such a device for such a length of time as he recovered from myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle.

The boy, from Pitsford, Northamptonshire, was listed for a heart transplant after suffering a heart attack in March that left him so ill his mother initially agreed that his life support machine should be switched off.

After being transferred to the Freeman hospital, in Newcastle, Jack was placed on an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) machine, which acts as a temporary heart and lungs for those awaiting transplant.But doctors decided to see if Jack could pull through without a transplant because around one in three children recover on their own. He was put on a device known as a Berlin heart – an external artificial heart, connected to his chest by four tubes, which pumps blood around the body.

The device stayed on for 120 days before it was removed in a complex operation 15 days ago. The longest period a Berlin heart has been used at the hospital is 150 days, but the patient in that case eventually had a heart transplant.

The consultant paediatric cardiologist Richard Kirk said: “He [Jack] would have died without the Berlin heart. You can realistically live on the ECMO life support machine he was using for four weeks – that would not have been enough time for a transplant or for him to recover from the myocarditis.

“What is unique about Jack is that he is the youngest patient ever to have this myocarditis and be kept alive on a Berlin heart for so long.”

I can’t imagine what these parents went through for the 4 months their child was being kept alive by a device that was outside of his body. SOURCE

Rare Identical Triplets Born In Austria

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A British mom should go out and buy a lottery ticket. She gave birth to an identical set of triplets in Austria yesterday, an occurrence that only happens once in every 200 million births.

Named Zoe, Kim and Amy, the girl triplets were delivered by Caesarean section on Monday in their mother’s 32nd week of pregnancy, a few weeks premature, a statement by the main hospital in Feldkirch in western Austria said.

The tiny trio, each weighing in at 1,500 grams (3.3 pounds) and measuring 40 cm (15.7 inches), were doing well although they would remain attached to respirators in the intensive care unit for several weeks to ensure no complications set in.

The triplets were conceived naturally, without fertility treatment, by the 25-year-old mother, who lives in the area with her Austrian partner, a hospital spokeswoman said.

“This was a whim of nature,” Peter Schwaerzler, head of the hospital’s gynaecological unit, told Austrian news agency APA.

What was rare about the birth was that the original egg split into two and one of these cells split again during the initial days of the pregnancy, then all three developed without deformities or other complications.

Only two of three triplets are identical siblings in most cases.

A set of identical triplets were born at the hospital my son was born at. The nurses always talked about that babies and I saw them once while waiting to see my son. All three boys had cleft palates is the exact same spot, which is the first known case of identical triplets born with cleft lips. An amazing occurrence. Surgery has corrected their lips and they are developing better than the average two year old.

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Micro Preemie Refused To Stop Fighting

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This is the amazing story of a baby that refused to give up…

A premature baby girl who had been declared dead began crying in the morgue of a hospital three hours later.

An employee at the hospital in Argentina heard her wailing and called doctors.

The baby, who was born three months premature and weighs barely 1.4 lbs, spent more than three hours inside a refrigerated room at the morgue, the hospital employee told reporters.

“It was a gift from heaven that the Lord gave me, a miracle,” said the man, who did not identify himself.

Jorge, the baby’s father, said his daughter “already had a death certificate, but then she turned out to be alive and now she is in an incubator trying to recover”.

“Nobody gave us an explanation or apologised to us,” the father told a local radio station. He added the baby had been named Brisa Milagros – Milagro means miracle in Spanish.

The director of the hospital in Monte Grande, 22 miles outside Buenos Aires, Mario Polzella, said: “The child did not have vital signs. All types of routine procedures were performed on her and she could not be revived. The hospital’s intention is to explain the reasons for what happened.”

SOURCE

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UPDATE: Youngest Preemie EVER Thriving and Growing

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Amillia Taylor, the world’s youngest surviving preemie, appears in this weeks issue of People Magazine.The micro preemie was born at 21 weeks 6 days gestation, weighing less than 10 ozs and measuring just 9 1/2 inches long.

 

Her chances of survival were probably 0% at birth due to the fact that the extreme limit of viability is 24 weeks and not many statistics are available for a baby at that gestation.

She defied all odds and joined her parents at home of February 22 of this year. Her weight on the day she left the hospital was 4 1/2 lbs.

People magazine caught up with her family last month and had some great new to report on Amillia’s progress.

The little pudger is now tipping the scales at 14lbs 3 ozs. She is able to hold her head up and sits with support.

Oxygen is still required at night while she sleeps, which is common for preemies who have spent extended times in the hospital.

Her care, with insurance coverage, has put her family $40,000 in debt.

That fact seems to be lost on them when they see her smile. “It lights up the room,” says Sonja, Amillia’s mom. “Every part of her makes me happy.”

• Amilia Taylor: Miracle 22 Weeker Finally Goes Home
• Doctors Save The Life Of 24 Weeker With Viagra
• Home and Healthy, the 20oz baby
• Another Miracle 23 Weeker

SOURCE:PEOPLE MAGAZINE JULY16, 2007 EDITION

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Baby Zoe Get’s Heart Transplant

Baby Zoe was placed at the top of the European heart transplant list after suffering six heart attacks and now she has a doner.

Zoe Chambers, 18 months, from Hull, had a heart transplant at Newcastle’s Freeman Hospital earlier yesterday.

A hospital spokeswoman said the transplant had gone quite well and Zoe was in a stable condition.

“We thank the donor family for thinking about another child during their sad time,” she added.

The hospital said it would not be releasing details of the donor family.

Doctors said that Zoe, who was born with a heart valve which was too narrow, had only weeks to live unless she had a transplant.

A heart became available last week but it was decided it was too large.

Her situation was so desperate, she was put at the top of a European waiting list for a donor last weekend.

Paediatric intensive care consultant at Newcastle Freeman hospital Yam Thiru said at the time: “We are becoming more and more desperate for an organ to become available for her.”

Before the operation, her 33-year-old mother said: “She is desperate. She keeps getting infection after infection.

“She needs a transplant as soon as possible to give her the best chance.”

It was unclear where the donor heart came from, but before the transplant hospital officials said Zoe’s case was so serious that if a suitable organ was found anywhere in Europe it would be flown to Newcastle by private jet.

Zoe has been kept alive by an artificial heart and needed a transplant as soon as possible or she would have died.

Her age and size made the task of finding a suitable donor organ extremely difficult.

 

Her parents, knew their daughter’s only hope was for another child to die and bring heartbreak to another family.

Hearts from donors up to five years old were being considered suitable for transplant surgery as long as they were a good enough tissue match.

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Brothers Each Welcome Twins – Hours Apart

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A set of brothers in the UK welcomed two sets of twins, within 72 hours of each other – making it a double celebration for the couples.

After learning that she was expecting twins, Michelle Bootle’s first reaction was to telephone her sister-in-law with the good news.

A few days later, Fiona Bootle returned the compliment – by announcing that she, too, had two babies on the way.

David Bootle, 35, a chartiy press officer, said that he and his 33-year-old brother Steve had always done everything together. “So once we got over the shock it made sense that our wives were both going to give birth to twins at the same time.”

Michelle, 33, a solicitor, lives in Leeds with Steve, a photographer. It was in October that they discovered she was expecting twins.

David and Fiona, who live in Gateshead, already had one daughter, two-year-old Ruth, but wanted another addition to their family.

When Michelle rang with her news, Fiona, 32, who is also a solicitor, knew that she too was pregnant.

“I didn’t want to tell Michelle and Steve because they were so excited about their own news,” she said.

“We told them the following weekend and they were thrilled for us – but we didn’t know that we were expecting twins too until a scan at 12 weeks. When the doctor told us I was expecting twins too, I nearly fell off the scanning table in shock. I just looked at David in complete amazement. When we got home we were still in shock, but we rang and told them about our twins too.

“Every time I went for a scan I would ring Michelle and we would compare notes, and then she would ring me when she had her scan. We compared bumps too, to see who was growing faster.”

Michelle’s twins Daniel and Lucy were born on May 16 weighing 5lb 8oz and 6lb 8oz. Fiona’s twins Toby and John arrived three days later weighing 7lb 5oz and 6lb 9oz.

Fiona said: “We will definitely consider joint birthday parties as they grow up.”

Both women delivered twins that were a healthy weight. Usually both babies weigh the same as a full term single baby.

SOURCE

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Parents Of Quads Need Help Getting Babies Home To Georgia

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A set of quads, born to a surrogate, currently reside at Sutter Memorial Hospital in east Sacramento, but their parents live in Georgia.

As the babies grow bigger and stronger their parents worry about how they are going to get the bunch home.

After trying to conceive for the last 11 years, The Kalumes found a surrogate mother in Sacramento who was implanted with 2 fertilized eggs. One of those eggs split into triplets giving the family 4 babies.

The quads were born at 29 weeks each weighing between 1 lb 4 ozs and 2lbs. Named Abraham, Jeremiah, Kristianna and Azariah, the babies are doing well with just one (Azariah) needing to be in the incubator still. All babies still need assistance with their breathing, requiring oxygen full time.

The Kalumes have been experiencing a run of bad luck over the last few years starting with their three year search for a surrogate. After learning that the surrogate was pregnant, it was revealed there were four heartbeats instead of one.

The babies were diagnosed in the womb with twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome, a dangerous condition in which they shared a placenta.

Deborah Kalume said she moved to Sacramento in January to help the surrogate mother, who is married and has four children. During that time, the Kalumes’ home in Georgia was hit by a tornado.

The family has been living in a trailer behind the hospital since the babies’ birth, trying to figure out how to transport the babies back home.

Finding a commercial plane that will carry the babies in their incubators is difficult and costly, doctors said. A cross-country car ride is unthinkable. Caring for the babies in the small trailer is unimaginable.

The Kalumes’ best hope is to scrape up enough money for a private jet, which they say won’t be easy on their incomes.

“I could possibly be living in a trailer with three babies and one in the hospital,” Deborah Kalume said Sunday as she sat with her husband in the tight quarters surrounded by knitted booties, little T-shirts and other baby clothes. “I mean, they say it can sleep eight, but I don’t want to find out.”

Wendy Stover, assistant nurse manager at Sutter Memorial, said the babies are doing well but require monitoring and medical care. A three-member team from the hospital, including a respiratory therapist, will travel with the Kalumes to Georgia, where the babies will be transferred to another hospital for care, she said.

“This is going to be a very costly transport, so we’re not going to be able to pay the entire cost,” Stover said, explaining that the hospital can cover only personnel costs. A fund is being established with the Fetal Hope Foundation.

Deborah Kalume, who works from home on her computer, and John Kalume, a computer technician for a company that processes insurance claims, say they don’t have a “gazillion dollars” to promise anyone, and they are not in the “nanny league” to hire help. Despite the dilemma, they are proud, beaming parents.

Let’s hope that someone who has the resources can donate their private jet to this family for the trip home. Unlike other families, this multiple birth was not planned. Natural Identical Triplets are VERY rare. They should consider themselves lucky that this spontaneous act happened to them.

Related Articles:

• Third Morrison Sextuplet No Longer With Us
• Second Morrison Sextuplet Dies
• Ariz. Sextuplets Breathing On Their Own!!!!
• Arizona woman gives birth to sextuplets
• Pregnant With Triplets…Would You Chose A Reduction?

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