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Update on Haitian baby at Shriner's Hospital Cincinnati

By Stefano DiPietrantonio – bio |email

CINCINNATI, OH (FOX10) - A two-month-old baby, burned in a house fire outside Port-Au-Prince, Haiti, is getting a life-saving chance here in the tri-state.

She had been in surgery every day for the last week or so in Haiti, and has two more scheduled at Shriner's Hospital here in Cincinnati later this week.

Doctors and nurses at Shriner's got their first good look at two-month-old Varina Mole very early Tuesday morning and could hear her cooing as they unbandaged her burned legs. From there, it was love at first sight.

"Most of the people where we just came from are living in tents of just makeshift homes and when one of the fires had started," said Dr. Michael Gollotto. "The baby had gotten stuck in the fire."

Gollotto is working with C.A.R.E. or Corporate Aviation Responding to Emergencies, said two-thirds of baby Varina's body is burned. Her right leg bears the worst of her injuries.

The tent hospital where she was only a day ago had dirt floors and a serious risk of infection, but Varina did not have to be sedated to make the trip.

"What happens with the third degree burns is that the nerve endings are kind of gone, so she really hasn't been in too much pain at all," said Gollotto.

Dr. Gollotto said Varina slept most of the way here.

"I think I've held the baby more than the mom has on the flight home," he said.

Baby Varina has never been out of 90-degree weather.

"She was very cold just arriving in Florida, let alone in Cincinnati," he said.

Beneath a fluffy, pink blanket, her tiny body was bundled up in a wet wrap that will not stick to her wounds.

"The worst part of her condition is really her toes," Gollotto said. "On her right foot, they're black right now, and there's a possibility she could lose her toes."

Varina is one of the few lucky ones.

"There's a boy that we're trying to get out that has tuberculosis of the spine where his spine is basically just disintegrating and he could become paralyzed and they're just saying it isn't acute enough it isn't a real, real emergency," he said.

The US government has to agree to accept a child and the Haitian government has to agree to let them go. Transport is almost impossible on domestic flights.

"We had plenty of room on both planes that we flew on today," Gollotto said. "I tried to get the kid on but we couldn't do it."

You can be denied at customs without the proper paperwork. Still, he said, it's well worth the battle.

"She's a fighter, but when I kind of wake her up and stimulate her, she likes to cry and scream which is good, you have to be a fighter to make it through something like that."

Dr. Gollotto said her prognosis is good.

Varina will be here at least six months to a year. Both mother and baby have two years they can legally stay here on what's called, humanitarian parole.

Shriner's also helped place her mother Marjorie, with a loving host family. So now, every part of the healing process is underway, not only for the baby, but for her mom as well.

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