Iraqi baby headed to US for medical treatment
Posted on: Friday, 30 December 2005, 17:12 CST
MIAMI (Reuters) - U.S. soldiers in Iraq encountered a baby girl with a life-threatening birth defect during a raid at her family's home and arranged to send her to their home state of Georgia for medical treatment, hospital officials said on Friday.
The baby, 3-month-old Noor, was due to arrive on Saturday at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, a pediatric hospital that is donating surgery and other care for the infant, hospital spokeswoman Kristina Flynn said.
Noor was born with spina bifida, a birth defect in which the spinal column fails to completely close, leaving part of the spinal cord exposed and susceptible to life-threatening infection.
Soldiers with the Georgia Army National Guard's 48th Brigade Combat Team searched her family's home in a poor Baghdad neighborhood earlier this month, looking for insurgents. They found none, but the baby's grandmother showed the soldiers the purple pouch protruding from the child's back and the soldiers sought help in finding her treatment.
"All I could think of was my five children back at home and my young daughter," one of the soldiers involved, Lt. Jeff Morgan, told CNN.
"And I knew if I had the opportunity whatsoever to save my daughter's life, I would do everything possible. So my heart just kind of went out to this baby and these parents who ... were living in poverty and had no means to help their baby."
The military flew the infant, her father and grandmother on Friday to Kuwait, where they were to catch a commercial flight to Atlanta.
Childspring International, a children's medical charity, set up the trip and arranged for the baby's relatives to stay with an Arabic-speaking family while the infant undergoes medical treatment in Atlanta.
The baby's family name was withheld to protect them from potential retaliation for associating with U.S. soldiers.
Source: REUTERS
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