By John Holland
Sun-Sentinel
HOLLYWOOD, Fla. — The Haitian baby had been alive for just 72 hours, but already, his time seemed to be running out. His mother had died in childbirth, piles of mud from deadly floods surrounded his remote village, and he lay starving and dehydrating.
But the newborn survived, thanks to a Davie-based nonprofit organization, the Seminole Tribe and its paramedics.
On Thursday, nearly 100 people gathered at tribal headquarters to honor volunteers who rushed to help Haiti when the impoverished Caribbean nation was ravaged by storms and floods last fall. They looked at photographs of Noah Benjamin Jason, the baby who survived and was named to honor the three Seminole paramedics credited with saving his life.
“He was dying, and then they just kept working, trying so hard to bring him back,” Helen M. Roenfeldt, a volunteer for the nonprofit group Mission Haiti, said.
Roenfeldt has made several trips to aid Haiti, and helped enlist the Seminole Tribe in the cause.
That’s how Lt. Noah Connell, firefighter Benjamin Driscoll and Lt. Jason Allis wound up in the country, and why their little namesake is now “fat, smiling and happy,” Roenfeldt said.
The Seminole Tribe has been an active philanthropist in terms of time and money given to a number of causes around South Florida. But the Haiti rescue was more of a group effort, with tribal employees volunteering their own cash and time, Mission Haiti supplying expertise, and the tribe and its fire department providing medicine and manpower.
Tribal Councilman Max Osceola said the tribe has no natural connection to Haiti, but identified with its plight as a poor nation fighting to survive. Before casino gambling arrived, Seminoles were so poor that the U.S. government outfitted each schoolchild with a new pair of shoes and a set of school clothes.
“We have been very blessed, and so now it is our turn to help those who need it,” Osceola said.
The Haiti mission began when Roenfeldt contacted Shelia Elliot, the tribe’s director of human resources and a friend from Gloria Dei Lutheran Church in Davie. Soon tribe employees started donating, and the three paramedics volunteered. Firefighter Jordan Biglin volunteered on a follow-up mission.
“You just can’t imagine the awful conditions they are living in after the floods, but the spirit of the people to survive and to make their way through it was what amazed me the most,” Biglin said.