Tuesday, May 5, 2009

HAND OF HOPE

I am grateful to a reader of this blog for sending me this moving email. I pass it on to you without comment…it needs no words from me.

Please read before viewing picture - it's worth it!

A picture began circulating in November. It should be ‘The Picture of the Year,’ or perhaps, ‘Picture of the Decade.’ It won't be. In fact, unless you obtained a copy of the US paper which published it, you probably would never have seen it.

The picture is that of a 21-week-old unborn baby named Samuel Alexander Armas, who is being operated on by surgeon named Joseph Bruner.

The baby was diagnosed with Spina Bifida and would not survive if removed from his mother's womb. Little Samuel's mother, Julie Armas, is an obstetrics nurse in Atlanta She knew of Dr. Bruner's remarkable surgical procedure. Practicing at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville , he performs these special operations while the baby is still in the womb.

During the procedure, the doctor removes the uterus via C-section and makes a small incision to operate on the baby. As Dr.Bruner completed the surgery on Samuel, the little guy reached his tiny, but fully developed hand through the incision and firmly grasped the surgeon's finger. Dr Bruner was reported as saying that when his finger was grasped, it was the most emotional moment of his life, and that for an instant during the procedure he was just frozen, totally immobile.

The photograph captures this amazing event with perfect clarity. The editors titled the picture, 'Hand of Hope.' The text explaining the picture begins, 'The tiny hand of 21-week- old fetus Samuel Alexander Armas emerges from the mother's uterus to grasp the finger of Dr. Joseph Bruner as if thanking the doctor for the gift of life.'

Little Samuel's mother said they 'wept for days' when they saw the picture. She said: ‘The photo reminds us pregnancy isn't about disability or an illness, it's about a little person.’ Samuel was born in perfect health, the operation 100 percent successful.

Now see the actual picture - and how awesome and completely incredible it is.... pass it on. The world needs to see this one!



8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Muchas gracias. Estupendo articulo.

Anonymous said...

Found this under

http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl-handofhope3.htm

Surgeon Joseph Bruner: "Depending on your political point of view, this is either Samuel Armas reaching out of the uterus and touching the finger of a fellow human, or it's me pulling his hand out of the uterus ... which is what I did."

So it's at least partly true

Marilyn said...

How curious that in the short time your blog has been posted Anon thought to go to an urban myth website and counter it. Unbelievable!

Craig said...

Did the operation take place - Yes. Was a 21-week old fetus saved from Spina Bifida by this operation - Yes. The message goes on to say: 'The tiny hand of 21-week- old fetus Samuel Alexander Armas emerges from the mother's uterus to grasp the finger of Dr. Joseph Bruner as if thanking the doctor for the gift of life.' - as if thanking - nobody has suggested for a moment that the fetus was actually thanking him - the miracle of this story is no myth!

Simon said...

Quote Marilyn

How curious that in the short time your blog has been posted Anon thought to go to an urban myth website and counter it. Unbelievable!

Unquote

I don't see why. Unbelievable that nobody else did really! Do you expect everybody to take 10 year old email round robins at face value without question?

Mary said...

Such a lot of Bah, Humbug! around isn´t there? Where is the compassion ?
Can´t it just be seen for what it is - a tiny human being given the chance at this wonderful thing called life- instead of being aspirated and incinerated..If there is a God- well here it is- in all of us the power to conceive of and carry through such " miracles"

Anonymous said...

Aw, c'mon! I see a story of a 21 week (almost certainly non-viable) fetus 'reaching his hand out to grasp the surgeons hand' and decide to google it for my own interest. One of the first results points me at an interesting-looking urban ledgend which corroborates the story apart from one small detail which I chose to share with you. Bah-humbug? Healthy scepticism and an enquiring mind I should say

And God? An extremely skilled surgeon is good enough for me.

Cheers.

SANCHO said...

Thank you one and all for your comments. I have now closed this comment section on this subject - but you are always welcome to comment on blogs a new.