53 Haitian orphans arrive in Pa. to start new lives

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Fifty-three orphans from earthquake-ravaged Haiti have arrived at Children's Hospital in Pittsburgh to begin the transition to new lives in the United States, Canada and Spain.

The children traveled by bus from the Pittsburgh's international airport to the hospital in Lawrenceville.

There the blanket-wrapped children - many of them infants and toddlers - were carried or accompanied into the hospital by caregivers. They range in age from a few months to 12 years old, with about half between 7 and 12, according to Clare Kushma, a spokeswoman for Catholic Charities of Pittsburgh.

The rescue mission came in response to messages last week from Jamie and Ali McMutrie, sisters from Western Pennsylvania, who said this month's devastating earthquake endangered the health of 130 children in their care at the BRESMA orphanage in Port-Au-Prince.

Gov. Rendell and U.S. Rep. Jason Altmire, D-Pa., accompanied a medical team from several Western Pennsylvania medical facilities on the plane to pick up the children.

The rescuers' heads still were spinning as Rendell, Altmire and Ali McMutrie addressed the media throng at the airport.

"It's awesome. I think I'm dreaming," Ali McMutrie said.

Rendell said that after hurdling numerous legal obstacles to get a rescue plane to Haiti, the mission nearly collapsed when Haitian and U.S. authorities were reluctant to allow all 53 children leave the island.

"We had an hour slot on the runway. While we were working the plane had to leave," Altmire said.

At that moment, all but seven of the children had permission to board the plane because their adoptions were nearly complete.

Forty have waiting families in the U.S., three will be adopted in Canada and four others were headed to Spain.

However, the McMutrie sisters were adamant. They would not leave Haiti unless all of their orphans, including the seven without adoptive homes, were with them.

"I called the White House and told them I had two constituents who wouldn't leave those kids," the congressman said.

"Over a period of hours it was cleared by the National Security Council. Everyone at the State Department who was involved with this issue dropped what they were doing," Altmire said.

As the congressman and the governor negotiated by phone, medical personnel on the rescue team went to the U.S. Embassy about three miles away to confer with the McMutries, who were with the children.

"To leave without even one of them was not an option," Ali McMutrie said. "They're all my children. My sister and I are their moms. We have a family that all love each other."

The hopelessness of the situation struck the McMutries when the quake hit last week and the two women were not at home. They were relieved to find all of the children had gotten out of the dwelling and were safe, Ali McMutrie said.

For a week, she said, she her sister and their orphans lived in a driveway with hundreds of other people, mostly children.

There was little or no contact from home. The biggest surprise for the women came at the embassy, where their parents found them.

The children were joyous from the ride from the embassy to the airport.

"They were singing, giving high-fives, they were praying with us," said UPMC spokeswoman Leslie McCombs. "It's been an emotional mission since day-one. It's unfathomable what they're going through."

Jamie McMutrie's husband, Doug Heckman, said he is trying to track down Jamie, who missed the flight home. She was at the U.S. Embassy last night, he said, but he isn't sure where she is right now or when she might arrive in Pittsburgh.

Heckman said the rescue trip to Haiti was well-organized and American military personnel on the ground at the airport were extremely helpful. At no point did he or the other members who made the trip feel threatened or in danger.

The children seemed happy and were well-behaved on the bus trip, said Tom Kneier, deputy executive director of Catholic Charities. But they became excited at their view of the city.

"They were just amazed by the size of the buildings," Kneir said a translator explained.

The children will be examined by doctors at the hospital. Officials at Children's said that based on what they've learned from the medical personnel on the plane, they do not expect any of the children will need to be admitted to the hospital.

Rendell, speaking to reporters at the state Capitol this afternoon, just after returning from Pittsburgh, described how the trip came together. He said officials of UPMC, a Pittburgh medical facililty, contacted him late Friday night because it was having trouble getting clearance to land a plane in Haiti to airlift the orphans out.

He then heard the Haitian ambassador on CNN Saturday afternoon, and called him in Washington. The ambassador said it was important to have the governor of Pennsylvania on the relief plane in case any diplomatic complications arose.

UPMC helped arranged the Republic Airways plane, which left Pittsburgh at noon Monday and landed in Port au Prince Monday about 6 p.m. Rendell said the fact that he was aboard did speed up the plane's ability to land on the one runway at the busy airplort.

It took just over six hours to load the orphans on the plane, and shortly after midnight, it left Haiti this morning with 53 orphans aboard, bound for Pittsburgh.

The plane landed in Pittsburgh just after 9 a.m. today.

In the confusion, one little girl was mistakenly left on the bus that had taken the orphans from the orphanage to the Port au Prince airport, but she was to be flown to Pittsburgh on a later plane.

"You should have seen the smiles on the kids' faces. That made it all worthwhile," Rendell said.

He said the children probably had a weather-related shock because "the average temperature in Haiti is 65 degrees and it was 31 and snowy when we landed in Pittsburgh."

Those who went on the mission have not disclosed who funded it.

Republic Airways, based in Indianapolis, provided the aircraft used in yesterday's rescue mission to Haiti.

"We did donate the use of the aircraft, fuel and crew to support the rescue operation," spokesman Carlo Bertolini said.

Also contributing to this story were Post-Gazette staff reporters Ann Rodgers, Mackenzie Carpenter Jim McKinnon and Rachael Conway.