Here are some recent escort stories send my our Children’s Medical Escort Director – Margaret Whitehead:

Pictured to left is Laetitia Alger Schley, our escort, who is an AA flight attendant and from France with the kids she accompanied back toParis recently after their donated medical care was completed. On this trip she was able to present the Charles DeGaulle Border Police with two nice award plaques that we had made to thank them for their assistance each time we have kids in/out of Paris. One award is for their office in Terminal 2A, the AA terminal, and the other for Terminal 2E, the AF terminal. The police always meet our escort and child at the airplane door when we are taking a child to Paris, and then help us to meet up with the ASF escort who will accompany him onward, usually to Burkina Faso.  Without their help we would be unable to continue this part of our program.

To the right is a picture of Tammy Meade and Yi Shan Lu, both DFWAA flight attendants with Baby Wenqi as they swap escorts in DFW. Yi Shan brought the baby from PEK to DFW where they were met by Tammy who took her on to MEM where she is scheduled to have open heart surgery. The little almost 2 year old cried for the first 3 hours of the flight, then finally settled down and slept but refused to eat. She only wanted her bottle. The poor baby was so exhausted by the time they arrived in DFW that she fell asleep in Tammy’s arms. She’ll be in all our thoughts as she undergoes this delicate surgery to repair her heart.

Bunny Doi (pictured at left) also recently accompanied Eldaa, a 15 year old girl back to CDG.  The interesting part is that the girl’s father remembered that Bunny had brought her back to Burkina Faso from Paris when she was a baby after a cleft lip repair, and when our escorts went all the way to that African country. That was before we knew about ASF, the Air France escort group. The girl had to return to Columbus, Ohio for additional medical care after all these years. Bunny didn’t remember her initially but did remember the all night celebration they held for her the night they arrived in Ouagadougou. There was lots of singing, dancing, speeches were made in their native language, and much rejoicing that Baby Eldaa had been returned home all healthy and happy.

We have several more trips coming up in the next couple of weeks –

On 30 Sep DFW flight attendant Tamara Bessette will accompany 10 year old Cristhofer from GUA to DFW where they will meet DFW Res Agt. Joy Heflin who will continue with him to CVG where he will have donated eye surgery.

On 02Oct, Mary Rhoden Lobban and Ana Perkins, both Envoy flight attendants will combine  to take Baby Mark from BZE to MIA to STL for donated orthopedic surgery.

On 03Oct, Envoy flight attendant Isabel Moss will bring 5 year old Aydin from GUA to MIA and hand him over to DFWAA Res Agt Shenae Johnson for the rest of his journey to EWR where he will undergo surgery for a frontal encephlocele.

Finally, on 11Oct there will be another CMH to CDG trip to take Hamado, age 2 years and Anaja, age 7 as they return to their families in Burkina Faso. DFWAA Res Agt Debbie Baird and PHX Flight Attendant Tracie Springer will meet Maria Malon, ORDAA Flight Attendant and the kids in ORD as they arrive from CMH to start their long journey home.