Brandt travels halfway around the world for treatment
It's not uncommon for families to travel long distances so that their children can receive highly specialized care at Children's Memorial Hospital. But few have been on a journey quite like 8-year-old Brandt.
Brandt's parents, Mark and Holly, are American citizens serving as missionaries in Papua New Guinea, a developing island country just off the coast of Australia. One afternoon in November 2002, Brandt's sister, Allie, discovered her younger brother lying unconscious and screamed out to her mother for help.
Soon they would learn that 3-year-old Brandt had developed a brain tumor the size of a golf ball.
Without any doctors nearby, the family had to seek medical attention elsewhere. Because of the rugged terrain and dense jungle surrounding their village, the family could not transport Brandt by car. Instead, they would have to take a three-hour canoe ride before transfering to a small airplane that would fly them out of the jungle.
Time was of the essence
Because of Papua New Guinea's proximity to the equator, the sun sets around 6:30 p.m. each night, year round. The small, grass runway they were headed toward is not equipped with lights, making nighttime flying nearly impossible, not to mention, dangerous.
It was almost 4 p.m. Mark and Holly had less than three hours until dark.
With nothing but the clothes on their back and a satellite phone, the family hurried aboard a 14-foot motorized canoe, and raced down the river. Brandt was still unconscious. Five minutes into their voyage, he started having a seizure.
As he steered his family along the river, Mark was able to get a hold of Brandt's pediatrician using his satellite phone. The doctor insisted that they find help and stop the boy's seizure immediately.
They needed to pull over for help, but realized that this would remove any chance of making it to the airstrip before sundown.
“I knew we weren't going to get there by dark,” recalls Mark. “And I thought, ‘Oh man, you failed as a dad. It was your job to do that and it didn't happen.'”
Then, to further complicate matters, the battery on their phone died.