In 2019, a newborn baby girl was discovered in a plastic bag that was tied up to a coffee tree in the Lam Dong Province of Vietnam. A coffee farmer was taking a walk nearby when he heard what he thought was an animal crying. When he searched the area, he found that a baby inside a plastic bag. The child had a head wound that had become infested with maggots. But that wasn’t all; she was also incredibly sunburned from being out in the harsh sun for days and had bites all over her body from mosquitos. The little girl was rushed to the hospital.
Once she arrived, the baby was diagnosed with hydranencephaly, a very rare condition that impacts a child’s nervous system causing symptoms such as an enlarged head, blindness, spasms or seizures, fluid on the brain, and paralysis. Doctors believed that she would only live for another year. However, when the abbess of Hue Quang Pagoda learned about the little girl, she felt compelled to come to her aid. The Venerable Minh Tai is well known in the region for her charitable work and wound up adopting the little girl after falling in love with the little angel.
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Minh Tai note explained that when she first laid eyes on the baby, her heart ached as she envisioned the suffering and pain this little one had to endure.
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As the tears started flowing from her eyes, she was in disbelief that any parent would do such a thing to their own child, regardless of their health issues. And at that moment she made a promise to do whatever it took to save the little girl’s life.
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The baby was eventually sent to Singapore’s Mount Elizabeth Hospital, which was better equipped to treat her condition. In the meantime, Minh Tai used social media to ask for help and managed to raise $25,000 in donations. She also renamed the child Trieu Hoai An.
After weeks of effort, the little girl began to recover, and her new om said she’s even grown a bit “chubbier,” and her voice is certainly much stronger. She describes the infant as a “beautiful and very lucky” little lady. You can watch a heartwarming video about this story below.
