[Infowarrior] - Very OT: Hat Tip to FEDEX

[Richard Forno]

FedEx flies terminally ill girl home By CELIA DEWOODY
celiad at harrisondaily.com
Published: Saturday, September 26, 2009 6:08 AM

http://harrisondailytimes.com/articles/2009/09/26/news/doc4abd634567a5f810451602.txt

Because of caring people and a caring company, a terminally ill little  
Green Forest girl was flown home Friday by air ambulance from M. D.  
Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, so she can spend her last days  
surrounded by the people who love her most.

Jada Harper, who turned seven on Sept. 1, has an inoperable malignant  
tumor in her brain and is in a coma with a ventilator doing her  
breathing for her. She has been at the famous cancer center in Houston  
since July, but her situation is now at the point not much else can be  
done to help her.

Friday afternoon, Jada was flown home to the Ozarks — on a gurney,  
attached to the machine that breathes for her. FedEx Freight paid the  
$11,000 bill for the special medical flight her family was unable to  
afford.

Jada is the daughter of Savannah and Jason Surface and has been a  
student at Green Forest Elementary School. The family, which includes  
Lyndon, 4, and Gracelyn, almost 2, lived in Oak Grove until Jada got  
sick this summer, and the family moved in with Jason’s family — his  
mother Wanda and sister Brandy Surface — in Batavia.

“Jada got diagnosed in June with a malignant brain tumor,” said the  
child’s grandmother, Wanda Surface. “It’s a brain-stem glioma, and  
it’s inoperable.”

Wanda said Jada was first treated at Arkansas Children’s Hospital in  
Little Rock.

“The most important thing was radiation, so we spoke with doctors all  
over the United States. There was one doctor who really wanted to see  
her, from M. D. Anderson’s in Houston. So we took her to Anderson’s in  
July.”

Jada was able to travel by car at that time.

“She had chemo and radiation,” Wanda said. “The treatment was  
shrinking the tumor, but they only gave us 18 months. Then about three  
weeks ago, she seized, and it killed part of her brain. She’s been in  
a coma for three weeks now. They had to put her on a ventilator.”

Wanda said Jada is not able to be taken off of the ventilator.

“They say she could still wake up, but she’ll still have brain  
damage,” she said. “They’re only giving us three months now.”

The child’s grandmother said medical experts at M. D. Anderson’s  
recently gave Jada’s parents a choice: to give her further radiation,  
which might buy her six months — “They said she could stay here, and  
let her lay here and let us keep her alive for maybe six more months.  
Or — you could take her home and give her three months.”

Wanda said Savannah and Jason “couldn’t bear to think about her lying  
there in that hospital for six more months. They decided to take her  
home to her family, to everyone who loves her. Everybody is here.”

Wanda, along with her son Jason, Jada’s dad, had been in Houston with  
Jada until recently.

  “Jason had to come home to go back to work at Tyson’s,” she said.  
“We got home yesterday.”

Jada’s mother, Savannah, remained behind at Anderson’s with her  
daughter.

Moving Jada home from Texas — in a coma and attached to a ventilator —  
became the big challenge.

“They said a ground ambulance was too dangerous,” Wanda said. “They  
said she’d be dead within hours — it’s just too long of a trip from  
Houston.”

She needed to be moved in an air ambulance, which costs $10,000- 
$14,000, Wanda said.

Wanda said the family started calling every organization they could  
think of that helps transport people for medical reasons, including  
Angel Flight, but they weren’t able to find anybody who would fly the  
little girl in her serious medical condition from Houston to Arkansas.

Tiffany Gilliam, a close friend of Savannah’s, kept updating Andrea  
Martin, Green Forest Elem-entary principal, with what was going on  
with Jada. Andrea called someone she knew at FedEx to see if they  
could help. She called the right person when she called Kelly  
Madewell, who is flight operations specialist at FedEx Freight in  
Harrison.

“This all took place on Thursday,” Wanda said. “The next thing we  
knew, Savannah called us from Houston, and she was crying and crying.  
She said they had called her to tell her that FedEx had a flight  
coming to pick her and Jada up and bring them home.”

Ken Reeves, vice-president and general counsel of FedEx Freight, told  
the Daily Times that Madewell “was the one who put this whole thing  
together, and Doug Duncan in Memphis, (president and CEO of FedEx  
Freight Corp. in Memphis), and Pat Reed here in Harrison, (executive  
vice-president and CEO of FedEx Freight), both approved for FedEx  
Freight in Harrison to pay for it.”

Reeves said the flight will cost the company “a little over $11,000.”

“One thing that impresses me about this company is that the company  
has a heart,” Reeves said. “Our company does a lot of things like  
this. It’s been recognized as one of the most admired companies in the  
world, and this is why.”

The Medway air ambulance, equipped with a medical team, picked up Jada  
and her mother in Houston on Thursday afternoon for the hour-long  
flight to the Harrison airport, where they landed about 4:30 p.m. Jada  
was met on the runway by an ambulance from North Arkansas Reg-ional  
Medical Center’s Emergency Services, which whisked her off in a matter  
of minutes toward NARMC, where she will be in intensive care,  
according to Wanda.

Friends and relatives, as well as Reeves and Reed from FedEx, were on  
hand at the FedEx terminal at the Boone County Regional Airport to  
greet Jada and Savannah when they arrived. The family used the  
opportunity to thank the two FedEx officials over and over for  
bringing their little girl home.

Jada’s family has expressed their gratitude to FedEx for what they  
have done to ensure the sick little girl could be brought home to be  
with her family.

“I really appreciate it,” said Daniyale Harper of Harrison, Jada’s  
aunt, earlier Friday. “It’s the best thing that’s happened so far.”

Jada’s grandmother, Wanda, said, “I’m so overwhelmed. You don’t know  
how we’ve searched for the past two weeks. We’ve searched all over the  
U.S. to find somebody who could help us bring Jada home, and the  
answer was right here in our own hometown. These people at FedEx are  
miracle-workers.”

Jada’s mother, Savannah, told Reed and Reeves at the airport, “It’s  
all worked out wonderful. I didn’t think we’d be able to get her here,  
but luckily, my hometown came through. From the bottom of our hearts,  
thank you.”