Save a child's heart
A Helpless Mother
A Helpless Mother
A Helpless Mother
A Helpless Mother
Xinyi Dong was born on May 20, 2004, in Guigang, China, with a serious congenital heart disease. Her complexion was pale, and she had difficulty breathing. Chinese doctors gave her no chance of survival after surgery.
Her mother found Save a Child’s Heart on the internet and made the following plea:
“We beg you to help our
A Helpless Mother
Xinyi Dong was born on May 20, 2004, in Guigang, China, with a serious congenital heart disease. Her complexion was pale, and she had difficulty breathing. Chinese doctors gave her no chance of survival after surgery.
Her mother found Save a Child’s Heart on the internet and made the following plea:
“We beg you to help our fragile daughter, hoping that the warmth of the sun will shine on everyone equally and that our daughter will not be taken from her mother so soon. We are unable to afford the medical treatment she needs and are desperately seeking a chance for free medical care that could save her life. I believe that with the help of kindhearted people, my daughter will have the opportunity to live…”
A helpless mother
Moved by her plea, Save a Child’s Heart made special arrangements with El Al to fly Xinyi Dong and her mother to Israel for the life-saving operation she desperately needed.
A Mother’s Love
A Helpless Mother
A Helpless Mother
A Mother’s Love
For some people, the word “no” is simply not an option. Because one mother refused to accept “no” as an answer, her little boy in Moldova is alive today.
Vasily was first examined in 1996 when the Save a Child’s Heart team held its initial preoperative clinic in Moldova, assessing children with heart defects. Although he w
A Mother’s Love
For some people, the word “no” is simply not an option. Because one mother refused to accept “no” as an answer, her little boy in Moldova is alive today.
Vasily was first examined in 1996 when the Save a Child’s Heart team held its initial preoperative clinic in Moldova, assessing children with heart defects. Although he was only a few months old, his condition was already severe, and we couldn’t risk flying such a young, critically ill child such a long distance. As difficult as it was, we had to inform Vasily’s mother that we were unable to treat him.
Fortunately for Vasily, his mother refused to accept this decision. She returned home and sold her farm to pay for airfare to Israel. To this day, we don’t know how she managed it. One afternoon, she arrived at our door with her five-month-old baby in her arms, making it clear—despite the language barrier—that we were going to save her child. And that is exactly what we did.
A shunt was placed between Vasily’s heart and lungs to facilitate blood flow. The results were immediate and remarkable—his skin, which had always been a pale blue, turned a healthy pink, something his mother had never seen before. We stayed in touch with the local doctor overseeing his care, and at the age of two, Vasily returned to Israel for a definitive operation. He went back to Kishinev as a completely healthy child.
It is ironic that Vasily’s mother, who knew nothing about the difference between an auricle and a ventricle, played the most crucial role in saving her son’s life.
ABOUT DR. AMI COHEN , FOUNDER OF SAVE A CHILD’S HEART
ABOUT DR. AMI COHEN Z”L, FOUNDER OF SAVE A CHILD’S HEART
Lt. Col. Ami Cohen was a true American hero. His work and vision have created countless friends for Israel, yet few in the United States are aware that Save a Child’s Heart—the largest organization in the world providing free heart surgeries to sick, indigent children—was founded by an American soldier who served his country with honor for 22 years.
Ami was born in Washington, D.C., at Columbia Hospital in 1954. He attended the Hebrew Academy of Greater Washington and the Yeshiva of Greater Washington before graduating from Kennedy High School, where he played on the football team. After high school, he attended Johns Hopkins University, where he played soccer and graduated Phi Beta Kappa. He then pursued his medical degree at the University of Virginia. A passionate athlete, Ami also helped introduce American baseball to Israeli children and led Israeli teenagers to compete in European tournaments.
While at the University of Virginia, Ami joined the U.S. Army and married his childhood sweetheart, Debbie Kamerow. He later became the Chief of Pediatric Surgery at Walter Reed Hospital.
The idea for Save a Child’s Heart originated in 1988 when Ami was serving in the U.S. military in Korea. There, he met Harriet Hodges, an American woman who raised funds for poor Korean children in need of heart surgery. Ami told her that if she could obtain permission from his superior officer, he would perform the surgeries for free. Mrs. Hodges secured the approval, and Ami operated on the sick children. He later said that this experience gave him “the bug of helping the helpless”—the spark that led to Save a Child’s Heart.
In 1991, as a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army, Ami was deployed during the Gulf War to help establish a military hospital in the desert. He and his team treated wounded American soldiers. Because of his religious background, he also volunteered to lead Jewish services for soldiers.
During Purim, Jewish children across the U.S. wrote to him, sending more than 250 hamantaschen (traditional Purim pastries). While delivering a Megillah reading for Jewish soldiers deep in Iraq, Ami and two American soldiers encountered two starving Iraqi soldiers—one of whom was wounded. After tending to the soldier’s injuries, Ami shared some of the children’s hamantaschen and water with them before ensuring they were taken to a safe location for prisoners. He then proceeded with his mission and completed the Megillah reading, giving the soldiers a taste of home.
After the Gulf War, Ami and his wife decided to make Aliyah (immigrate to Israel). Their son, Nadav, was 12, and their daughter, Tali, was 8. Both Ami and Debbie found work at Wolfson Medical Center in Israel—Ami as a cardiac surgeon and Debbie as an orthoptist.
Two years later, Ami received an urgent call from a doctor in Ethiopia about two indigent children who would die without immediate heart surgery. Wolfson Medical Center agreed to treat them, but at the time, Save a Child’s Heart had no housing facility for patients. Ami’s parents volunteered to care for the children in their apartment in Netanya. The surgeries were successful, and today, both children are living happy, full lives in Ethiopia.
Each year, a team of Israeli doctors and nurses travels to Ethiopia to examine the next group of children in need of surgery. A highlight of their visit is a soccer match between former patients and the medical team. Seeing children—once weak and blue from lack of oxygen—running, playing, and living normal lives fills the doctors with immense pride and joy.
Ami personally traveled to developing countries to screen potential patients for surgery in Israel. He often spoke of the heart-wrenching decisions he had to make:
“The hardest thing of all is to visit these countries, knowing we have limited resources and must decide which children we can save. Once I see a child, I cannot look them in the eye and say to their parents, ‘We do not have enough money to save your child.’”
Ami’s vision for Save a Child’s Heart continued to grow, and today, it is the largest organization in the world dedicated to treating indigent children with heart disease. His legacy is best captured in an article he wrote for The Johns Hopkins Medical Journal in January 2001:
“I am convinced that for the vast majority of people who choose cardiac surgery as a profession, idealism is initially a strong factor. For those just starting out, hold fast to your ‘day after vision,’ because if it fades, despite all the skills you acquire, something essential will be missing. For those who are searching, join us. Let’s build a network to help children with heart disease worldwide. The task is enormous, and there is work for everyone. There are no dollars and cents in it, but it is worth a fortune.”
In August 2001, Ami climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. After reaching the summit, he developed altitude sickness and tragically passed away.
His legacy lives on through Save a Child’s Heart, which continues to save lives and bring hope to children and families around the world.
This revision maintains the original story’s depth while improving clarity, readability, and flow. Let me know if you’d like any further adjustments!
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