The baby’s name was Herbert and he was sure to die, just like his mother, who took her last breaths bringing him into the world.
The boy’s father, poor and alone, brought the infant to the BRESMA orphanage in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, hoping someone would take pity on Herbert, who was small and sick after surviving his first five weeks on nothing but sugar water.
After telling Herbert’s father, on several occasions, that there was no room at the orphanage, 30-year-old Ben Avon native Jamie McMutrie caved in.
“We told the dad we would take [Herbert] and love him until he dies,” Jamie said in a telephone interview from Haiti. “I stayed up for what seemed like 24 hours a day for weeks feeding him through a dropper.”
After receiving his share of cuddling and proper nutrition, Herbert survived. He is now a happy 2 1/2-year-old living the in the United States with his adopted family…
Read more at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Jamie, left, and Ali McMutrie wait in the chill of an open Corporate Air hangar at Allegheny County Airport as the plane that will take them to Haiti is loaded with supplies for their BRESMA orphanage.
Two Ben Avon sisters left for Haiti Monday — their mission, to bring home 12 stranded children from a Port-au-Prince orphanage or stay behind to watch them as their country continues to dig out from a deadly earthquake.
The orphanage, known as BRESMA, was the center of a dramatic mission led by Gov. Ed Rendell last month in the aftermath of the quake that has already created countless new orphans in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation. Fifty-four children from the damaged orphanage who had been living in precarious conditions were flown to the United States Jan. 18
Jamie and Ali McMutrie, along with Leslie McCombs and her son, Herbie, boarded a private jet Monday at 10:30 a.m. at Allegheny County Airport, bound for Port-au-Prince, Haiti, after a stopover in Opa-locka, Fla. At 4:20, Ms. McCombs, a senior consultant for government affairs at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, reported back: “Just wanted to let you know we arrived safely.”…
Two local sisters returned to Haiti to help more orphans recovering from a devastating earthquake.Jamie and Ali McMutrie brought 54 orphans in January after the earthquake. On Monday, the sisters flew back to Haiti on a small donated plane.They are taking food and supplies to the 28 children remaining at the BRESMA orphanage. 16 of those kids are supposed to be adopted by French families. Another 12 do not currently have a country that will take them in…