A woman who helped thousands of Mitcham mums deliver their babies has turned 100.
Former midwife Margaret Murphy, known to her friends and family as Peg, celebrated her birthday at the weekend.
The party and meal took place on Sunday in the hall of St Michael’s Catholic Church in Chesnut Grove, where Mrs Murphy is a member of the congregation.
Her niece, Mary Foster, said: “She was a local community midwife and served the Mitcham area for most of her working life. She is well known and loved in this area and has probably delivered more babies than we have had hot dinners.”
Mrs Murphy was born in Ireland. She comes from a medical family, and her son Raymond Murphy - a consultant in Dublin - flew over especially to take part in the celebration.
Before most kids can count, a 3-year-old dialed 911 and saved his grandmother's life.
A little boy did a very grown-up thing. Three-year-old Jaden Bolli dialed 911 after his grandmother had a seizure, saving the 54-year-old woman's life. Jaden had been taught to dial 911 just days before. Kids his age have been known to ring up a 911 operator now and then, says a 911 spokesman, but mostly by accident.
Surprise Survivor Is Just One of the Delayed Rescue Tales that Have Become Hallmarks of Haiti's Earthquake.
JACMEL, Haiti – Rescue teams found a 15-day-old baby alive in a crumbled house here Tuesday, after she'd spent nearly half her life without food or water amid the ruins of last week's earthquake.
A search and rescue team was demolishing the remains of the home of the mother, Michelene Joassaint, believing that there was no chance that her baby Elisabeth, eight days old when the quake struck on Jan. 12, could possibly be alive.
The rescue team found the baby in the same bed where she was napping when the earthquake struck. The bed had fallen to the ground floor, but the baby was not even injured.
The cousin of the 15-day-old Haitian baby who was found alive in a crumbled house Tuesday comments on her medical care.
"It was the mercy of God," said Ms. Joassaint, 22 years old, breastfeeding her daughter on a makeshift hospital bed next to the heavily damaged city hospital Tuesday evening. Ms. Joassaint was staying in a homeless camp set up on a soccer field when she learned the news. "I cried and then ran to the baby," she said.
Ms. Joassaint said that just before the quake she had fed Elisabeth on the second floor of her home and then went downstairs for a moment. When she felt the tremor begin she tried to run back upstairs for Elisabeth, she said, but the walls began to crumble. She had no choice but to turn and run out, she said.
"This wasn't the way Jesus wanted the baby to die," said Michelet Joassaint, the baby's grandfather, a 47-year-old fisherman who was at sea at the time of the earthquake. "Everybody knew the baby was dead, except the Lord."
More than 90 people have been pulled alive from the rubble by international rescue teams, according to U.N. figures. That figure doesn't include those saved by ordinary Haitians digging with their shovels, sticks and bare hands.
Hours after the baby's rescue, an international crew of rescue teams worked feverishly in the capital into the night on Tuesday to try to save a young woman called Natalie, entombed in the collapsed remains of a market but still alive.
WSJ's Charles Forelle reports from Port-au-Prince, Haiti, with the latest on the relief efforts there. He says there is little evidence of aid to Haiti's newly homeless.
Rescuers passed a remote camera into the position where the woman was trapped. She reached for it. "That means she has enough power to grab. That's a good thing," said Dundare Sahin of Akut, a Turkish rescue service.
Minutes later, rescue workers were able to speak with Natalie. "She said she was fine," said Christian Mascaro of the French rescue group Rescuers Without Borders.
Some Haiti survivors may have lasted longer than is usual for several reasons, including mild weather. And construction materials used in Haiti's buildings may have helped: collapsed pre-pressed concrete slabs that tend to leave gaps when they crash down.
A family, including a young boy with a machete, guarded their store in front of a church in downtown Port-au-Prince Tuesday.
"It crushes some some people horribly, but it can leave gaps for people to survive miraculously," Sir John said.
While the story of the baby's survival was particularly dramatic, it echoes a very similar tale from the 1985 earthquake that hit Mexico City. There, some 13 babies were rescued alive from the collapsed maternity ward of a hospital, trapped over a period of one to nearly nine days. They were called "the miracle babies" and captured the world's attention.
In the years since, Mexican newspapers have written stories to update the lives of the survivors as they have grown into young adults.
There was another dramatic rescue a day earlier on Monday, that of a woman who had been buried in her bed for six days under the rubble of her two-story home.
The woman rescued from her bed "was lying face down on the mattress with the first-floor ceiling pressing her down," said Brian Miura, an emergency room physician from Torrance, Calif., who was part of the Los Angeles Country team that saved the woman.
The rescuers used listening devices and dogs to triangulate her location. Then they cut a hole through the roof and, beneath that, the collapsed walls. Then they reached through a 2 1/2-foot gap and cut away the base of the bed to extract her.
Dr. Miura described the woman as "hysterical" when she emerged. The rescuers pumped her full of fluids and sent her to a Brazilian hospital. Dr. Miura expected her to survive the ordeal.
The crew had pulled two sisters out of a different room of the same house on Sunday.
After Monday's remarkable rescue, U.S. and other rescue teams continued search operations on Tuesday, despite what they admitted were ever-slimmer chances of finding survivors. "The window is shutting relatively quickly," said Mark Stone, a spokesman for a search-and-rescue team from Fairfax, Va. Still, "there might be a needle in the haystack, so don't give up," Rex Strickland, operations chief for the Fairfax team, told his 72-member crew Tuesday morning.
Sarah Wallace, a 24-year-old midwife from Devon, holds up baby Mirlanda, a malnourished baby who she cared for in Haiti. Mirlanda and her mother are missing.
Photograph by: Supplied, edmontonjournal.com
As Canadians are urged to head toward the embassy in Port-au-Prince and evacuate earthquake-ravaged Haiti, Devon-raised Sarah Wallace will stay amid the chaos in an isolated city to the south and search for survivors... continue reading
Our immediate action required. Please go to http://godslittlestangelsinhaiti.org/ and donate money to God's Little Angel! The money will be used to keep the orphanage running and to help the surrounding community!
GLA needs fuel to run their generator. They have babies who rely on that generator to run as they are on oxygen or in incubators!
GLA has people knocking at its gates for food, medical help, etc!
PLEASE GIVE NOW! GLA is already in the middle of this disaster zone...help them help those around them affected by this catastrophe!
About GLA
God’s Littlest Angels is a Haitian orphanage located in the mountains above Pétion-Ville, close to the village of Fermathe. The majority of the children brought to the orphanage are between the ages of newborn and 7 years old. We also have older children, sibling groups, and children with special needs waiting for adoptive parents.
God’s Littlest Angels has ministered to the children of Haiti since 1994 and has been involved in international adoptions since 1997. GLA is involved in several children’s ministries in the local community. In the year 2000, GLA implemented a school sponsorship program for children unable to attend school due to the lack of funds. Today, more than 200 children attend school sponsored by people in North America and Europe.
God’s Littlest Angels is a 501(c)(3) non-profit Christian ministry incorporated in the State of Colorado. In 2000, GLA Canada was formed and is a registered Canadian Charity. All financial donations received in the United States, Canada, and France will receive a tax-deductible receipt.
Released on January 1, 2010, Deepak's first children's book is a sweet and poignant story that reveals a little girl's glimpse at cosmic consciousness.
On a cool summer's eve, five-year-old Tara takes a walk on the beach with her grandfather. When he is not quite sure how to answer her questions about love and life, the Moon herself joins in on the conversation. She tells Tara that the stars made our eyes so they could see themselves. She also explains that everyone we see is our own self in a different form.
TAMPA - Juan Velasco said he certainly didn't plan it this way, but he and his wife Margarita now have identical twin sons, born in different years.
It happened at Tampa General Hospital during emergency surgery.
The first of the twins, named Marcello, was delivered at 11:59:37 p.m. Thursday. He's the last baby born at TGH in 2009.
His brother, Stephano, was delivered at 12:00:02 a.m. Friday. He is the first baby born at TGH in 2010.
"We never think that we would be the first of the year, or the last of the year, nothing like that," said Velasco. "But I'm really happy."
The twins were born at 30 weeks' gestation, so they had to go to the neonatal intensive care unit, according to Catherine Lynch, the University of South Florida doctor who delivered the babies.
Lynch said the surgery was necessary because one of the babies was not receiving as much nutrition from the placenta as his brother. She expects both babies will be in the NICU about eight weeks.
And they'll always have different birthdays, even though they were born seconds apart.
"So they'll always be twins, but now they each have their own special day," said Lynch.
Lynch said this New Year's Eve was the busiest at TGH in recent memory, with five babies born in the three hours before midnight, and five more delivered in the three hours after midnight.
