Photo By Staff Sgt. Nathaniel Smith | Capt. John King, from Swartz Creek, Mich., and Spc. Kazan Tamer, who is from...... read more read more
By Spc. Nathaniel Smith
4th Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division
BAGHDAD – On a routine patrol in southern Baghdad where Soldiers could find anything, from a terrorist weapons cache to an explosively formed penetrator ready to deal death, they found something completely unexpected.
While troops from Company D, 1st Battalion, 28th Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, were on patrol in February, they found 19-month old Mariam Raad, a girl with a tumor in the side of her face.
The Soldiers took a picture of the child and showed it to their battalion surgeon cell. The lesion was hampering Mariam's ability to function, said Capt. John King, a physician's assistant with 1-28 Inf. Regt., who is a native of Swartz Creek, Mich.
"She's had this massive facial lesion on her face since approximately two months of age, and over time it has gotten progressively larger – to the point now where it's impeding on her airway," King said. "It's affecting her ability to eat; she's failing to thrive, so to speak. She does not resemble the typical American child you would see at this age."
After examining the girl, King and Maj. Adrian Ortiz, the 1-28 Inf. battalion surgeon, reached the conclusion she needed treatment that was not available in Iraq to get Mariam the treatment she needed – a task much more easily talked about than accomplished.
Ortiz reached out to his associates back in the United States when Dr. Robert Arnot of MSNBC agreed to help by contacting officials with the Jordanian government and his colleagues in the United States, lining Mariam up to get treatment in both countries.
"When this all came together, we had Dr. Faris Madanot in Jordan, who took this case on at King Hussein hospital in Amman; he had the hospital cover all expenses," King said, "Operation Smile and its founder, Dr. Bill Magee, in the United States took over the other part for all the care in the States. They'll be sponsoring her and her mother the whole time."
Still, with all the medical treatment lined up, the "Black Lions" still had miles of red tape to wade through before they could bring Mariam to Jordan or the United States, specifically, acquiring visas and passports for the child and her mother.
Lt. Col. Pat Frank, the 1-28 Inf. commander, along with his personal security detachment, escorted the tandem to the national Iraqi assistance council through a sector of the city they were not familiar with, where Dr. Victoria Jacobs assisted with shortening a three-day process to just one afternoon. Arnot worked with the Jordanian government to get clearance for the treatment, and with the intervention of Queen Rania, it was acquired.
King said the time saved was vital for Mariam's well-being.
"Mariam is in great danger; this is a medical emergency," he said. "It was vitally important that she get taken care of. If she had stayed in Iraq, she would have most certainly perished."
Spc. Kazan Tamer, an infantryman on Frank's personal security detachment, who is a native of Patterson, N.J., developed a close relationship with the family.
"I call her brother about every day, just to talk to him, see how he's doing, what they need; all he does is thank us because we got his sister and niece out of harm's way," he said. "They're out of Iraq, which was the goal, to get the baby out of Iraq for medical attention, and they did it with the help of Capt. King and the Black Lion staff."
King added that the treatment is going to have a great impact not only on Mariam and her family, but on the entire Bayaa region.
"This is a great victory for the little girl, her family, and the Black Lions. It's going to go a long way in terms, of course, transforming the child's life, her family's lives, but also the lives in Bayaa when they see this child, who has this obvious facial deformity that is literally killing her. Now she'll come back, and hopefully everything goes as we would like it to. She'll be able to come back and live a normal life."
For Tamer, who has relatives in Jordan helping Mariam and her mother any way they can, getting the child to treatment bore special significance.
"Personally, I can relate because my family's from the Middle East and I'm Muslim. I thought it was the right thing to do," he said. "I would have done it for anybody else, but being here in a war, it felt right."
| Date Taken: | 04.07.2008 |
| Date Posted: | 04.07.2008 14:05 |
| Story ID: | 18167 |
| Location: | BAGHDAD, IQ |
| Web Views: | 879 |
| Downloads: | 711 |
This work, Girl rides 'Black Lions' to tumor surgery, by SSG Nathaniel Smith, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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