Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, March 2004, pages 24, 59

Special Report

 

Critically Injured Iraqi “Miracle Boy” Now At Oakland’s Children’s Hospital

 

By Elaine Pasquini

Saleh with Col. Jay Johannigman, M.D. (photo credit staff photo P. Pasquini).

SALEH KHALAF is known as the “miracle boy” to members of the 332nd Expeditionary Medical Squadron Hospital at Tallil Air Force Base, who treated the 9-year-old Iraqi boy after he was critically injured Oct. 10 by an explosive device in his schoolyard in Nasiriyah. Because of Saleh’s strength and great will to live, Col. Jay Johannigman, M.D., one of the American surgeons who performed more than 10 operations on the child, also dubbed him “the lion-hearted.”

On Nov. 25, two weeks after being transferred by military transport from Iraq to Oakland’s Children’s Hospital and Research Center, Saleh’s father, Raheem Saad Khalaf, 34, described his son’s horrific ordeal to the Washington Report through Iraqi-American translator Emanuel Ashoo.

According to Khalaf, during the current U.S.- led war on Iraq there was a battle between U.S. forces and “insurgents” at Saleh’s school in Nasiriyah. On the first day of school last fall, the second grader picked up a “canister” in the schoolyard. Although other children urged Saleh to put it down, his father related, the youngster was scared and didn’t know what to do with it. Saleh’s 16-year-old brother, Dhiya, grabbed the device to protect his little brother. It exploded, killing Dhiya. After this accident, the U.S. military re-swept the school grounds and found additional unexploded ordinance.

Saleh’s injuries were severe: shrapnel destroyed his left eye, three fingers were blown off his left hand, he had a large gaping hole in his abdomen and multiple shrapnel and burn wounds to his chest, head and face. In addition, his right hand was blown off in the blast. Saleh initially was treated in the local hospital for his injuries, before eventually being admitted to the medical facility at Tallil Air Base on the outskirts of Nasiriyah.

In a telephone interview with the Washington Report from his office at University Hospital in Cincinnati, Ohio, Johannigman, an Air Force Reservist who recently completed his military duty in Iraq, described the day Saleh arrived at the base’s Visitor Control Center. The South Korean army hospital, set up in Nasiriyah to treat local Iraqis, had referred Saleh to the Tallil base, Johannigman recalled.Due to the huge wound in his stomach, Saleh had been without food and water for eight days. “Our team descended on him,” the surgeon explained. “Saleh had gangrene of the intestinal wall, a perforated ulcer, and an injured liver and colon.”

Johannigman operated on the child’s abdomen while Major Eric Fester, M.D., an orthopedic surgeon, attended to Saleh’s handless right arm. The next day, Johannigman related, Saleh began bleeding profusely from his stomach wound, and was near death. Two Army chaplains, in tears, prayed at the young patient’s bedside. “Everyone was in tears,” Johannigman said. After that day, he added, Saleh “had 110 aunts and uncles,” and for the next 20 days, nurses and technicians kept a 24-hour vigil on the little boy. Since his tent was only 60 yards away, Johannigman explained, “if Saleh sneezed, I’d know about it.”

Realizing his young patient would die without medical treatment beyond the capabilities of his small trauma unit, Johannigman e-mailed Dr. Peggy Knudson, trauma surgeon at San Francisco General Hospital. “Through the generosity of the KCI Company [a global corporation that provides a broad range of medical equipment],” Dr. Knudson told the Washington Report, “we were able to fly in some important medical equipment to the air base.” Knudson then contacted Children’s Hospital’s renowned chief surgeon, Dr. James Betts, who quickly agreed to treat the little boy.

On Nov. 8, a C-130 Hercules crew from the 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing left Tallil Air Base for the 35-hour trip to Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, California, with stopovers in Germany and Maryland’s Andrews Air Force Base. During the grueling journey, with his father by his side, Saleh—weighing only 40 pounds—suffered chills, a raging fever, and a high white blood cell count. Critical care air transport team member Col. Robert Singler accompanied Saleh on the flight to Travis AFB, where a medical helicopter flew Saleh the remaining 35 miles to the Oakland hospital.

During his first three weeks in Children’s Hospital, Saleh was connected to a machine which automatically cleaned his stomach wound, eliminating the painful process of changing the eight-inch-diameter bandages every three hours. Much-needed nutrients were lost in the process, however, and subsequently Saleh had not gained any significant weight. On Dec. 1 he was taken off the VAC pack after a skin graft from his thigh to his stomach to cover the wound exposing his intestines—the gravest threat to his life—proved successful.

Saleh dislikes hospital food, but enjoys Middle Eastern food brought to him by three local women—an Iraqi, a Yemeni, and a Palestinian.Mostly, he only wants yogurt or rice, but, during one of this reporter’s several visits, when Emanuel Ashoo’s wife, Faika, asked what she could bring him to eat, Saleh replied, “Bread like my mother makes.”

Like his American counterparts, the spunky little boy enjoys watching cartoons on his hospital television and playing with toy cars. He’s inquisitive about his environment and asked if California had “any date trees.” When asked what he wants most, however, he responds, “to be with my mother and sisters in Iraq.” His mother, Hadiya, 34, is home with daughters Marwa, 112; Zahra’a, 212; and Safa’a, 18.

Although the hospital has provided nearby living quarters for him, Saleh’s father constantly remains with his son, sleeping in a cot adjacent to Saleh’s bed.Raheem Khalaf is grateful, too, that the hospital has provided a telephone for him to call home to Iraq.

Mourning the loss of his eldest son while he stands vigil at the bedside of 9-year-old Saleh with the stick-like legs, a right-arm stump, his left hand in a cast, left eye socket outfitted with a huge patch, and his thin stomach wrapped in bandages, the young father thinks about his wife and three daughters in Iraq as he gazes out the window and cries.

 

A Joyous Reunion

On Dec. 19, Col. Jay Johannigman ended two months of “separation anxiety” and flew from his Cincinnati, Ohio home to the Bay Area to visit Saleh Khalaf. The reunion at Oakland’s Children’s Hospital was joyous for both the doctor and his young patient—and, too, for Raheem Khalaf, who credits the Air Force Reservist and his medical team at Tallil Air Base outside Nasiriyah for saving his son’s life. “This is the happiest day of my life,” Saleh’s father exclaimed upon seeing the Air Force surgeon walk down the corridor toward his son’s hospital room. Young Saleh was overjoyed at the reunion, as was Johannigman, who last saw his patient near death on an airstrip in Iraq.

During his 24-hour stay in California, the Air Force surgeon consulted with Saleh’s doctors—including Dr. Betts, San Francisco General Hospital’s Dr. Knudson, and plastic and reconstruction surgeon Dr. John Griffin—about the youngster’s condition and the prognosis for his rehabilitation, which will include a prosthetic right hand and left eye. Praising the outstanding medical treatment by the team at Children’s Hospital, as well as their generosity—the doctors have donated their services—Johannigman was optimistic about Saleh’s future. “I think he has a chance of having a good life,” he said hopefully.

Elaine Pasquini is a free-lance photojournalist based in the San Francisco Bay Area.

SIDEBAR

Saleh’s father, Raheem Khalaf, was a taxi driver in Nasiriyah at the time of his son’s accident. While Mr. Khalaf remains with his son in Oakland during Saleh’s medical treatment and rehabilitation, which could take several months, he is without an income. For information on the fund established to assist with Saleh’s medical and other expenses, contact Elaine Pasquini at < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it > or call (415) 602-6692.

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