Baby Jenny, Survivor of Haiti Earthquake, Reunited with Family

Baby Jenny Alexis spent five days buried in rubble before being discovered alive. Yesterday, she was finally reunited with her parents.

By Kathryn Hawkins. Posted on April 07 2010

On January 12th, when the earthquake struck Haiti, Nadine Devilme saw her 2-month-old daughter Jenny Alexis collapse through the floor of the house while in her babysitter’s arms. Both the sitter and the baby were buried beneath the rubble, and there was no reason to believe that the fragile infant would have survived.

But five days later, rescue workers came across an astonishing sight beneath the debris: although Jenny’s babysitter had died, the baby was still clinging to life.

“She had a fracture to her skull, she had broken ribs, she had difficulty breathing,” Jenny’s doctor, Dr. Arthur Fournier, told The Times. “So the first miracle was that she had the heart, the courage, to survive by herself for five days.”

However, odds were slim that Jenny would survive if she stayed in Haiti, where many of the medical facilities had been damaged or destroyed by the earthquake. So Dr. Fournier fought through red tape to allow the injured baby to be airlifted to the US, where she would have the greatest level of care.

With medical attention, Jenny’s condition soon improved, but that wasn’t the end of the trouble: her parents were forced to take DNA tests to prove parenthood, but even after finding that they were a match, they were not permitted to come to the US because they didn’t have the necessary visas.

Finally, the State Department permitted an exception, and allowed Jenny’s parents to come to Florida for one year on humanitarian parole. Yesterday, they were overjoyed to finally hold their baby girl again, covering her in kisses.

“Everything that happened here was a miracle,” Jenny’s father said through a translator. “Jenny faced death and when we learnt Jenny was alive we were very happy and couldn’t stop crying. Every day after that, we have thanked God that she was alive.”

Filed under: General Interest,

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