A Story & Photo you will not
believe!
So you ask yourself when life begins? Don't look at the picture until you read the article!
Picture of the Year - Read the article FIRST
A picture began circulating in November. It
should be "The Picture of
the Year," or perhaps, "Picture of the Decade."
It won't be. In fact,
unless you obtained a copy of the US paper which
published it, you
probably would never have seen it. The picture
is that of a 21-week-old
unborn baby named Samuel Alexander Armas, who is
being operated on by a
surgeon named Joseph Bruner. The baby was
diagnosed with spina bifida
and would not survive if removed from his
mother's womb. Little Samuel's
mother, Julie Armas, is an obstetrics nurse in
Atlanta. She knew of Dr.
Bruner's remarkable surgical procedure.
Practicing at Vanderbilt
University Medical Center in Nashville, he
performs these special
operations while the baby is still in the womb.
During the procedure, the doctor removes the
uterus via C-section and
makes a small incision to operate on the baby.
As Dr. Bruner completed
the surgery on Samuel, the little guy reached
his tiny, but fully
developed, hand through the incision and firmly
grasped the surgeon's
finger.
Dr. Bruner was reported as saying that when his
finger was grasped, it
was the most emotional moment of his life, and
that for an instant
during the procedure he was just frozen, totally
immobile.
The photograph captures this amazing event with
perfect clarity. The
editors titled the picture, "Hand of Hope." The
text explaining the
picture begins, "The tiny hand of 21-week-old
fetus Samuel Alexander
Armas emerges from the mother's uterus to grasp
the finger of Dr. Joseph
Bruner as if thanking the doctor for the gift of
life." Little Samuel's
mother said they "wept for days" when they saw
the picture. She said,
"The photo reminds us pregnancy isn't about
disability or an illness,
it's about a little person." Samuel was born in
perfect health, the
operation 100 percent successful. Now see the
actual picture, and it is
awesome...incredible....Life is so beautiful
Hand Of Hope
