PEACE & SECURITY | Creating a more stable world
17 March 2008
American Doctor Teams with Marines to Save Iraqi Girl
Amenah’s story shows American compassion, says Bush
Washington -- U.S. Marines on a routine patrol in Haditha, Iraq, were looking for signs of enemy activity when they found something entirely different and helped save the life of a 2-year-old Iraqi girl.
When Marines met the girl's family, one noticed something wrong with the child -- her fingertips turned blue whenever she exerted herself.
Captain John Nadeau, the unit’s medical officer, recognized her symptoms as a sign of a serious and potentially fatal heart defect, which area hospitals, damaged by extremist militants, were unable to treat.
Nadeau contacted colleagues at Vanderbilt University Children's Hospital in Nashville, Tennessee, and Major Kevin Jarrard, the company commander, arranged for the girl and her mother to travel to the United States for open-heart surgery. Stateside, family members of the Marines raised money to pay for the Iraqi family’s trip to Tennessee, and pediatric surgeon Dr. Karla Christian agreed to perform the operation free of charge.
The operation was a success, and the girl and her mother retuned to Haditha March 7.
“I am very happy. I was very worried that my daughter would not come home alive,” said the girl's father. “I am very grateful for the great treatment the American people gave to my family.”
“I’ve got four children, two boys and two girls myself,” said Jarrard, who joined in welcoming the girl and her mother home to Haditha. “I was very happy to see a father, mother and child reunite.”
“Ours is a compassionate nation that believes in the universality of freedom,” President Bush said in a March 11 visit to Nashville, where he met Christian to thank her for her effort. “Ours is a nation full of loving souls that, when they find a stranger in need, will lend their God-given talents to help that stranger.”
The girl's story also shows a side of U.S. involvement in Iraq too often overlooked in the headlines, Bush said.
“The contrast couldn't be more vivid,” President Bush said. “We got people in Iraq who murder the innocent to achieve their political objectives, and we've got Americans who heal the broken hearts of little Iraqi girls.”
