Haitian Man Found Alive in Rubble After Four Weeks
HOLMES: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning. It's 13 past the hour. Want to give you an update on allegations against that group of American missionaries accused of trying to illegally take 33 children out of Haiti. A Haitian police officer now tells CNN that he stopped the Baptist missionaries, including the group leader, Laura Silsby, in an earlier attempt to transport dozens of kids from Haiti to the Dominican Republic. The 10 Americans from Idaho being held in Haiti on kidnapping charges.</s>CHETRY: Nearly four weeks after the earthquake in Haiti, those still trapped in the rubble have been mostly were given up for dead. Too soon though for a 28-year-old Haitian man who was actually rescued yesterday. Now he may have been buried under the debris since the quake hit. He was emaciated, dehydrated, but in relatively good shape. So how did he beat near impossible odds and survive? Chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta is in Port-au- Prince. He joins us now on the phone. And, Sanjay, this is an incredible rescue.</s>DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): No matter how you look at it, Kiran, there's no question about it. It's extraordinary in every way, as is the case with most of these rescues we've been talking about for some time. It is very difficult to absolutely establish the veracity of everything that has happened with this particular man, but we may never know all the details for sure. But what we are hearing, what doctors believe, along with his family, is that at the time of the earthquake he was trapped in a marketplace where he was selling rice. Again, four weeks ago today that we're talking about now. And at that time he was trapped but not crushed or pinned in any way, which may have been a very important factor in all of this. When he was -- he was rescued by some people in that area, taken to a small army clinic and eventually transferred to a larger hospital, we saw him there. He was exactly as you described, very emaciated, very dehydrated. I don't know if you're looking at some of the pictures, Kiran and TJ, but this -- this is a man whose family says lost over 30 pounds during this timeframe. His vital signs are relatively stable, the doctors tell me. He had a lot of blood work done at that point, which was consistent with someone who would be very dehydrated. You know, a couple of things to your point, one is that he -- he was sort of hallucinating, maybe even a little bit delusional at the time that he was brought into this hospital. He was describing that someone in a white coat was coming to him and bringing him water at various times over these -- these past four weeks. And he also didn't even realize that he had been rescued. He still thought that he was under the rubble when he was in this hospital as well. But certainly, even as I'm talking to you now, he's being resuscitated and doctors are pretty optimistic. I asked the doctor specifically as well, what did they think of all of this, the doctors that took care of him. Here's what they said.</s>DR. MIKE CONNELLY, TREATING SURVIVOR TRAPPED FOR FOUR WEEKS: He was emaciated. It was obvious that he hadn't had anything to drink or to eat in -- in quite some time. He had open wounds that were festering on both of his feet.</s>GUPTA: Do you believe it? I mean, you believe it to be true? This would be what? This would be the longest survivor so far of this earthquake.</s>CONNELLY: Yes. Yes, I mean, the -- there's no reason for me to -- to doubt it. That's what the bystanders -- bystanders related to us. I mean, the patient was so incredibly weak and -- and frail when he came in.</s>GUPTA: He has two children, and I talked to his family yesterday as well, and they are telling his children today that their father is still alive. You know, they wanted to wait a little bit of time, but just -- just absolutely remarkable, no matter how you look at it.</s>HOLMES: Yes. No matter what, I'm sure we're going to get more details, Sanjay, about this. We're going to be checking in with you again as well. But thank you so much for that report. We thought we'd seen the last person pulled out alive, and we've got another one, so miracles still happening there. Thanks so much, Sanjay. Also, stay tuned to CNN tonight for a special "AC 360" investigation, looking at greed and corruption in Haiti before the quake. We'll follow the money in "Stealing Haiti", tonight, 10:00 Eastern time, right here on CNN. Also coming up here on the Most News in the Morning, the market plunges below 10,000. Our Christine Romans, "Minding Your Business" after the break. It's 17 past the hour.