tv Larry King Live CNN January 30, 2010 9:00pm-10:00pm EST
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>> we've seen a lot. it has been a remarkable time. we hope to continually come back over the weeks and months ahead. this story is not going away. the needs are going to continue long term. cnn is committed to reporting on what is happening on the ground in haiti. every new hero we meet is a new beginning for haiti. we are going to keep telling their stories. for all of us here krand heroes back home, thanks for watching. >> larry: two weeks after the earthquake, the struggle continues. we have an urgent plea for help. >> most importantly are crutches to give someone the freedom and ability and to take the pressure
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off the care givers around them. >> larry: new fears the children are the targets of child trafficking. haitian aadopt tees finding their way to loving parents and new homes in the united states. storying of survival. an american pulled from the rubble days after the quake. how did he survive? plus musical superstars mary j. blige and andrea bocelli and what they are doing to help haiti's victims. it is all next on "larry king live. >> larry: thanks for joining us. it has been more than two weeks since the devastating earthquake in haiti. some are not getting beasks, a roof over their heads, medical assistance for the almost 200,000 injured still heart to
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come by. joining us dr. sanjay gupta, cnn chief medical correspondent and a practices neurosurgeon. what is the latest on the medical situation, sanjay? in the early days you painted a desperate scene. what is it like now? >> i think in many ways it has gotten better. a couple of things have improved. surgerying on the grount. in this tent, people who have had amputations, in tents like this hospital. still short of doctors and nurses. it is a lot better than it was a few days ago and even better a few days from now.
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>> larry: heather mills is an amputee herself. the amputations of the crush injury are the significant injury of this disaster. have we any sense how many amputations have taken place? >> it is hard to know. there are so many various locations set up. a lot of these places are performing amputations because someone has a crush injury and taking the arm or leg ends up being necessary. it could be 200,000 amputations. that is a staggering number. possibly as a result of this earthquake. they think 95% of people who have crush injuries, a lot of the patients in the tent behind me, 95% would need an amputation
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that is the reality of haiti. >> larry: joins us from london, heather mills. a charity activist. heather is working with physicians for peace. she is urging people to donate their old prosthetics to the people of haiti. she is as you well know herself an amputee having lost part of her left leg in a 1993 road accident. staying with us in port-au-prince is dr. sanjay gupta. heather, you are working with physicians for peace. you want mobility supplies. can people donate their old prosthetics and it will work elsewhere? >> we started this program, larry, in '94 after i lost my leg. i was working in the war in yugoslavia. we had to find a quick way of getting limbs to the amputees. we fitted 27,000 people with the same system.
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in the indian earthquake when we set up the tents, the lion's club charity there. i always like to not reinvent the wheel and find out exactly which agencies, which clinicians are working on the ground in the countries rather than bombard and reinvent what people are doing. physicians for peace have been on the ground for several years. they had a great clinic for rehabilitation and prosthetic care that has been destroyed. go to the hangar clinics and contact physicians for peace and we can reuse the components. most importantly at the moment are crutches. to give someone the freedom and ability and take the pressure off the carers around them, to get around before atrophy sets
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in. >> larry: how do you know where to send them? what do you do with the limb? where do you send it? >> contact physicians for peace. you can take it to your local clinic. ask them to help locate the local hangar company who offered to collect them all, store them for us and what i'd like to do is get as many krupps as possible first. i have collected a number of sponge blowup legs. as soon as you can create circulation in the early days of healing the sooner it would minimize infection. >> larry: sanjay, is the health care infrastructure in haiti ready to handle an influx like this. can they handle hundreds of crutches and wheelchairs and
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prosthetic limbs coming in at once? >> we are going to need that. heather knows they are in the acute phase of things. amputations are still being performed, larry. the wound has too heal, the swelling has to go down. eventually the prosthetic gets fit but that could be a few weeks from now still. there are several different organizations which have been performing these amputations. there are so many of them. we are standing outside a swiss tent in the partners of help and mt. sinai in new york. there are so many organizations doing this. it is going to be a little time we are in that phase but it is coming, no doubt. >> larry: heather, i know you did this historically on our show. i would appreciate it if you did
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it again. will you show us your limb so people around the world can get an idea of how they will be helping. >> this is actually the kind of limb that we need to find to donate but like sanjay said, i'm fully aware they are not going to need the limbs for weeks. but it takes weeks to coordinate and donate and get them packed and shipped as you saw when disasters happened, before they got foods. thinking three or four steps ahead. it will be very soon they will need crutches most importantly. this is an artificial leg typical. this is a socket on my leg which has a screw attachment. and what we do is you have an attachment in here and the leg goes on and pops in and it actually screws in. that is the attachment we need
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to have to make it simple for people to get about so it doesn't get hot. we need to collect as many as possible. it takes weeks to take this limb apart and find the components and put them boxes. what we don't want is when they are able and rey to have a limb fits we are still messing about and struggling to do this. this is why i work with companies that are already doing it down there. so you are not just going in blindfolded. you are working with people who have been there as physicians for peace have. >> larry: if you want more information go to physiciansforpeace.org. an american survivor will join us to talk about her road to recovery. she is lucky to be alive even though she lost part of her leg crushed in the earthquake.
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joining us now is an american who survived the earthquake but her leg was amputated below the knee after she was evacuated to the united states. she's at jackson memorial hospital in miami. how are you doing, christa? >> i'm doing great. >> larry: now you're obviously grateful. you have access to major medical care. how long before you'll get a prosthetic? >> it will still be a couple weeks for me. last friday the surgeons were
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finally able to close up the wound on my leg. so now the skin needs to heal, and the swelling needs to go down and then i can fitted for a prosthetic. >> larry: have you been able to see what heather just showed us? >> no, i wasn't. >> larry: okay. well, it looked pretty simple. heather, what advice would you have for christa? >> she obviously looks quite positive. i can see in her face that she's gone through a very difficult time, but i'm sure she's got a lot of love and support of her family and friends around her. the most important thing is to take care of your health and get the best kind of prosthetic that you can in america. the most important thing is not cosmetic immediately because you're residual limb will shrink as time goes on, as i'm sure you've been told. i have a form of 6,000 amputees that talk to each other that probably live in an area near you. if you go to heathermills.org you can talk to many people and learn things. if you've got a blister or
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bleeding later, you don't need to be off your limb. you can use blister plasters, lots of little tips that go forward. one of the quickest way i helped is to help other people. it's like a natural adrenaline feeling that you are connecting with other people, so if you get in touch with us when you're feeling ready, then you can go on and help a lot of the victims from haiti yourself if you feel that you want to do something like that. but you obviously and hopefully will get the best care. we'll communicate. >> larry: you'll be in touch. it's heathermills.org? heather, is that it? >> that's it. heathermills.org. >> larry: sanjay, how is haiti going to be able to handle all of these amputees? i know your specialty is brain surgery, but you know the body pretty well. it's going to be an enormous task, isn't it, assuming they get a lot of help coming in? >> yeah. there's no question about it, larry. it's going to be an enormous task.
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heather should know that the types of patients that this is going to help. we met a 7-year-old boy not that long ago, marie claude is his name. he's 7 years old. this house literally fell on his leg. he required an amputation. he's back there with his mother. his four other siblings and father perished in the home. he needs a leg. if he doesn't have a leg, he can't get around. if he can't get around port-au-prince, it's hard to get around in wheelchairs in port-au-prince. you need to be able to walk. with this amputation he needs help with the prosthetic device. how is port-au-prince going to be able to deal with this? it's going to be very, very tough. the infrastructure is going to change completely. this is going to be a country that's known for amputations and they didn't do a good job of taking care of people with disabilities before this. this will need a lot of focus with the help of heather and a
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lot of other people. >> larry: heather, we salute you again. we'll be calling on you again. it's physiciansforpeace.org. >> please get in touch. anything medical would be great. one last thing. >> larry: quickly. >> sorry, darling, any prosthetists who want to volunteer please call. we rotate so you won't be away from your own practice. >> larry: thank you. we'll keep in touch on your process and check back, of course, with dr. gupta. thank you all very much. the wilkins family was in the process of adopting a haitian boy when the earthquake hit. we told you their story last week. we have a happy report for you tonight. little samuel is in the united states flown in from haiti with 80 other orphans. he's right here. he'll join us with his family, next.
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>> larry: this is a happy night for us around "larry king live" here at cnn. joining us are joe and jill wilkins. they were in the process of finalizing the adoption. he traveled to haiti last week to bring their son and other child home from god's little orphanage home to the united states. joe, jill, and samuel are here with us now. joining us in a while, jason and jamie stanley. they were the adopting parents of 6-year-old twins from haiti when the earthquake hit. the twins arrived in the united
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states on friday with wilkins' son, samuel. the stanleys' daughters are there with the family. first we'll concentrate here on the wilkins. what's it like, joe, to finally have him home? >> it's wonderful to have him here. we've been looking for this for the past several months, and over a year now. and being a dad for three days, everything is new and -- >> larry: first child? >> first child, yes. >> larry: how did he handle the flight? >> from haiti he slept the whole flight, so that was nice. of course, i had two other kids next to me, so i was kind of -- they were a little more -- >> larry: you had 80 on the plane altogether? >> we had 81 on the plane. >> larry: they dispersed in miami? >> we went through immigration for seven and a half hours while they did the paperwork. that was a time i'll never forget. >> larry: when can he become a
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citizen? >> well, you know, larry, that's one mountain we have ahead of us. i think a lot of us were at the legalization point where we had -- he had our last name, since that time since they had the humanitarian parole weave lost that. we have to start over. we don't know what it entails yet. we haven't had a lot of information shared. we're just praying that the government does the right thing and possibly grants these kids u.s. citizenship. they've been through so much already, and starting over seems like too much of a mountain in front of us. >> samuel is 20 months? >> yes, 20 months. >> what happened to his parents? >> his parents were killed in a natural disaster in 2008 when he was only about 4 months old. >> larry: the hurricane? >> i believe so. >> larry: he's been at the orphanage ever since? >> he came in in november 2008 to the orphanage and we were matched up in december of 2008. >> larry: do they give you a lot of information about his health? >> definitely. we -- at least when he was at
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the orphan anl, we got monthly updates on his size, his height, his weight. if there are any illnesses with him. >> larry: do you expect a long battle on citizenship? >> i pray not, larry. obviously we've been at this since 2007, our adoption process. we need it to be over. we are so tird. we need him to be with us for good and not worry about it. >> larry: you stay here. let's go to des moines, iowa. jason and jamie stanley are in the process of finalizing an adoption from the same agency. how are the kids doing, jason? >> they're doing very well, larry. thanks for asking. you may notice, we're down one daughter. everything was a little overwhelming for us. whitney is off the screen right now but here in person. >> larry: and ali is there, right? >> she's right here, that's right. they're doing very well. it was a little overwhelming for them, but they're really fitting into the family well.
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we got a new puppy for christmas and that seems to be breaking the ice. she's mothering her and having a great time with her. >> larry: do they have the same citizenship issue as the wilkins? >> they do, yes. >> larry: so you think you're going to have a battle on your hands? >> we might. we haven't had an opportunity to talk with our social worker yet, but we'll do that hopefully this week to understand what we need today and whether an adoption attorney needs to get involved. we'll do whatever we need to do. we've come three years and won't stop now. >> larry: will the state of iowa be involved? >> most likely. that's our understanding, yes. unless there's a change we don't know about that we hope will happen. as jill mentioned we hope there's an opportunity for them to not make all the families go through this, but we will do what we need to do because they're our kids. >> larry: more with our new families, is this joyous or not, when we come back. everybody thinks he's the most handsome cat they've ever seen. [ woman announcing ] purina one for indoor cats...
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anncvo: it's so easy, a caveman can do it. caveman: unbelievable... caveman: where's my coat? it was suede with the fringe. vo: download the glovebox app free at geico.com. >> larry: joe was on the plane, right? >> i was, yes. >> larry: jason and jamie were in miami waiting for the twins, right? >> that's correct, yes. >> larry: what was that like, jason? >> it was wonderful. they put it up on the arrival board. we were able to see it came in, saw it landed. i got a picture of jamie pointing to it, the landing status. we didn't know at that time how much of a long haul we had in front of us. another eight or nine hours. we were happy they were on american soil. >> larry: how did the
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6-year-olds react when they saw you? >> it was wonderful. he saw me and i said his name and he ran to me and hugged me stronger than i thought a 6-year-old could hug. she had a shy smile and gave me a hug. she was a little sick, so her emotions were maybe a little tempered but they were happy. they were happy. >> larry: joe and jill, is the united states government getting involved in your hopeful matter to expedite things? >> we heard from a senator today through e-mail that said they were going to check on it. they had so many e-mails and they were behind on so many issues. we need to say this is priority, and we hope they stay involved and really do help us out. >> larry: we hope so, too. the same with you jason? do you expect the government to get involved?
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>> we hope so. we hope so. we don't really know. we haven't heard anything yet. we're waiting for that to be worked out, but we know there's other things on their minds as well with the orphans just created in haiti. we want them to be taken care of, too. the orphanage expects to be full again in two weeks tops. with the adoption status still up in the air down there, they need support. who knows how long those kids will be there. >> larry: good luck to all of you. we'll stay on top of this story and keep in constant touch. great meeting the twins in des moines and here in los angeles to finally see samuel. say l.a. >> l.a. >> l.a. >> larry: come on. he's been saying l.a. >> larry: good enough. >> l.a. >> larry: la. ivan watson covered this story from the beginning. he's in port-au-prince with the latest. you have the story of a man construction worker. what's that about, ivan? >> reporter: yeah. he was a realtor, larry, and basically i found a guy. he was starting to try to take
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apart what's left of his house and try to salvage a few things. i followed him home to where he's now living. this guy had a three-story house, he was renting out the bottom floors to help pay for his college kids tuition. now he's living in a sprawling refugee camp in a makeshift tent. it's filthy. he's embarrassed about it. his whole family is sleeping on the ground in this filthy place even if he gets aid, this guy's dignity is crushed. he's accustomed to working and making a good life for his kids and his family. now they're sleeping under a sheet. it's really, really tough to see this guy in this awful position. >> larry: ivan, wouldn't construction workers be in demand in haiti now?
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>> reporter: this man was actually a real estate agent, and i think he was making a lot of money renting out the ground floor of his building as renting it out basically to help pay for his family. that's gone now. i asked him, you know, everybody is alive and everybody is okay, and yes, everybody is okay, but now what? what does this guy do now? what do hundreds of thousands of other people like him do? getting a bag of rice, it's wonderful and it will keep them alive for a week maybe, for four days. imagine how much they lost. i asked his daughter does it make you sad living here? the tent was like a sauna. she kind of said, very, very, very. she just stared off into the distance and tried not to cry. it's a 17-year-old girl. >> larry: that was cnn's ivan watson. next fear over the safety of haiti's orphans. are they in danger of being bought and sold and what can be done to prevent it? perhaps the question is not so much whether you can afford
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i have asthma. and when my symptoms-the coughing, wheezing, tightness in my chest came back- i knew i had to see my doctor. he told me i had choices in controller medicines. we chose symbicort. symbicort starts to improve my lung function within 15 minutes. that's important to me because i know the two medicines in symbicort are beginning to treat my symptoms and helping me take control of my asthma. and that makes symbicort a good choice for me. symbicort will not replace a rescue inhaler for sudden symptoms. and should not be taken more than twice a day. symbicort contains formoterol. medicines like formoterol may increase the chance of asthma-related death. so, it is not for people whose asthma is well controlled on other asthma medicines. see your doctor if your asthma does not improve or gets worse.
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i know symbicort won't replace a rescue inhaler. within 15 minutes symbicort starts to improve my lung function and begins to treat my symptoms. that makes symbicort a good choice for me. you have choices. ask your doctor if symbicort is right for you. (announcer) if you cannot afford your medication, astrazeneca may be able to help. joins us now to talk about the risk of child trafficking and abduction, lisa louman at save the children. also maggie boyer, communications director for world vision in haiti and
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cnn's's own anderson cooper. how worried are we about child trafficking in this tragedy? >> we were worried before and are worried now. there are a lot of stories, a number of organizations, unicef, world vision safe the children are trying to follow them up. we haven't found evidence these stories are true but that doesn't mean children are not at risk. all humanitarian actors remain vigilant. >> larry: maggie, it is a danger since so many children are scattered around, we don't know whether their parents are living or dead. they are open to this, aren't they? >> that is correct, larry. before the quake 380,000 children were labeled orphans in haiti. you can imagine that number has increased since the quake. world vision is working hard to
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keep track of those children and ensure their well being. >> larry: maggie is coming to us via that skype gadget. amazing how this works. anderson cooper have you seen evidence of this in your report something. >> reporter: we looked into it. we were given a heads up to two stories. unicef turned us on. we did not get evidence of trafficking. we talked to unicef and save the children who say they are clearly on the lookout. a lot of these organizations want to start tracking, get their hands around how many orphans there are, who may have family members they are separated from. we saw this in the wake of the tsunami there were concerns about child trafficking. it was hard to find actual evidence of it.
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haiti has a history of not just child trafficking but internally kids are sold often or given by poor families to other families living in the city and those kids will grow up as domestic servants working with a family. that is a form of trafficking that happened long before the earthquake. >> larry: lisa, how does trafficking work. give us the moedus operandi. >> the kinds of trafficking that happens in haiti, restavek happens when a family can't care for its children and sends them to what presumes to be a wealthier family to provide
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domestic service for food, shelter, clothes and possibly an education. what happens often however is the terms of the child's living there are not monitored at all, they are not very well established. children are treating harshly. sometimes there is violence and sometimes they are sexually abused. often they are caused to leave those families before they turn 125 which is the age they are to be legally paid and then they go on the streets. >> larry: how much sexual slavery, maggie, is involved in this? >> larry, i think when children are abandoned or separated from their families and not in the care and affection of their parents they are exposed to all dangers including sexual exploitation chchlt is not unheard of in haiti.
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we have seen statistics that up to 1/3 of our young women especially in the city do suffer some kind of sexual violence. it is a danger here even before the quake. there is no reason to think those numbers have decreased. >> larry: anderson, how do we know an orphan is an orphan? when you see a child on the street how do you know if the parents are living, how do you know? >> reporter: well, you don't really know. you can talk to them but oftentimes they are separate. they will say i heard my mother died but they don't know. people disappeared. the mother goes out to buy something at the store, the store collapsed, the child hasn't seen her but heard through stories she is dead. unicef is working on it, save the children, i'm sure the red cross will be involved in trying to identify and catalog all these unaccompanied minors with the aim of reunited statesing
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them with their parents or figuring out they are orphans and need an orphanage or international adoption. >> larry: we take a break. we will ask you if adoptions are taking place that shouldn't be adoptions. don't go away. cheeseburger mac... how 'bout some after the show? hamburger helper. one pound. one pan. one tasty meal. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 a lot more for a lot less. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 that's why, at schwab, every online equity trade tdd# 1-800-345-2550 is now $8.95. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 no matter your account balance, tdd# 1-800-345-2550 how often you trade or how many shares... tdd# 1-800-345-2550 you pay what they pay what everyone pays: $8.95. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 and you still get all the help and support tdd# 1-800-345-2550 you expect from schwab. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 millions of investors. one price. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 at charles schwab investors rule. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 are you ready to rule?
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we know some children have left haiti to go to other countries. i understand the children who have come to the united states were children in the process of the adoption and so far athrong was almost no question or no question at all about what their status should be. the concern now we not rush to adoption and rush to the assumption these children don't have parents or extended families that might want to care for them. adoption may be an important and necessary option down the line but the first thing we need to do is make sure if they have family that is out there f there are neighbors and community members who can care for them ethically and responsibly, we are in a position to let thap before it is too late. >> larry: maggie, i know you met with the president and first lady of haiti. did you discuss the possibility of this problem with them? >> larry, i did have the honor of meeting the president and the first lady this morning. and i did have the opportunity
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to bring up to them world vision's concern with the well being of children. i'm glad to report that the first lady was already aware of that and is working on an initiative and world vision is looking forward to perhaps assisting the government in the coming weeks and days, especially the first lady's office about this initiative concerning children. and can i add one more thing. the haitian prime minister had in his daily meeting with heads of agencies made it very clear in no uncertain terms a couple of days ago any hasty adoptions are not likely to succeed the government has granted some expedited adoptions that were already in process.
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i think the government is aware of hasty adoptions. i don't mean to impune them the government is on task not allowing this to happen. >> larry: anderson, are there a lot of children just running loose? >> reporter: you come akros kids all the time identified as being on the run. at a hospital jny, 5 years old, didn't know his last name. the nurse said no one was watching over him. i met a restavek girl in another hospital. at a church they had 20 kids identified as orphans. they made a list they were up for adoptions. there was an indication they were willing to let me take these kids. there are kids floating around
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in ad hoc groups with some adults, some locals looking after them but they need to be watched over in a much more organized setting by international groups, haitian orphanages and get a sense of what their needs are. >> larry: coming up, a hopeful story of survival under the toughest of conditions. what kept american dan woolly alive under the rubble of a hotel in haiti for 65 hours? he'll tell u.s. next. (announcer) the sinus triple threat. owwww.... (announcer) not just sinus headache...
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>> larry: dan woolly was buried in the rubble of the hotel montana in port-au-prince for 56 hours. as you can see he survived the ordeal. his wife christy joins us, too. they are in colorado springs, colorado. how did you do it, dan? >> i had a lot of people praying for me. god was there. he was listening to their prayers. he helped me survive. >> larry: what were you doing in haiti? >> i work with compassion international and i was there with a filmmaker and we were shooting a documentary to shine a light on the extreme poverty of children there. >> larry: i understand you wrote notes kwhil buried under the rubble to your wife and two sons. how did you do that? >> well, i realized -- i was always hoping for a rescue. i realized that might not be
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god's plan for me at that time. so i had a camera with me and was able to use the light from the focus on the camera to shine on a page and write a couple of lines and move my finger down and write a couple more lines. i wanted to say to my wife and kids the things i would want them to carry with them if i wasn't able to get out. >> larry: christy, have you seen those notes. >> i've seen some of them, yes. >> i'm not ready -- >> larry: what did you say, dan? >> i'm not ready to share them all yet. we are still working through some of that. >> larry: what was it like for you, christy, did you give up hope? i. did in the end. i did give up hope. i kept crying out to god. i didn't know if dan was in heaven or haiti. i went to times of despair to
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times of hope. it was hard to go back and forth. we have two young sons and hard to stay strong for them and say daddy's coming home and not know for sure. >> larry: how did you learn he was okay? >> the state department called me at 6:00 in the morning on friday morning and i started packing. they said that they found him. he was alive, but they couldn't get to him. so i packed my boots and my gloves and my hat and sunglasses and i was on my way to haiti to dig. i got a call in the dallas airport they had been able to extract him. >> larry: wow. i understand there was another man buried and you were talking to him, too, dan, is that true? >> that's right. i was able to communicate with about seven other people. right next to me in the elevator shaft was a haitian gentleman.
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we could hear each other well. we talked a lot. we prayed together. sang songs together. holding on to hope in a situation like that was really vital. i wanted to do everything i could my wife and my boys. >> larry: when that phone rang at 6:00 a.m., that could have been anything on that call, that could have been bad news? >> yes. >> larry: do you remember what you felt from you picked up the phone? >> well, my sister answered it, and she brought the phone to me. she said, christie, it's the state department, they're calling. i had to fall on the floor, i couldn't even stand up, my legs were shaking so badly. and i just said, have you heard anything from my husband? and they said, well, a man named dan wooly has been identified. i said, is he alive? they said, yes, he's alive. they said we don't know anything else and we can't get to him. >> larry: wow!
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dan, are you okay? >> you know what, i'm doing great, i have a big cut on my leg that's healing, i'm going to have a great scar there. other than that -- >> broken leg, broken foot. >> but i'm alive and with my family, and grateful to god, and all the people around the world who were praying for me. >> larry: congratulations to both of you. next, mary j. blige and david foster joining forces to raise money for haiti. as having to decide to go for it? at the hartford, we help businesses of all kinds... feel confident doing what they do best. by protecting your business, your property, your people. you've counted on us for 200 years. let's embrace tomorrow. and with the hartford behind you, achieve what's ahead of you. ♪ but my allergies put me in a fog. so now, i'm claritin clear! claritin works great on all my allergies
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welcome back to larry king live. joining us now, mary j. blige, the nine-time grammy winning artist. and andrea bocelli, and david foster. they have an announcement to make. you make it, david. >> we got together, the 40th anniversary of the song "bridge over troubled water." the producer of the grammys picked this song for mary and andrea to sing. as a tribute to that song and to raise funds for what's happening in haiti. and it's been a labor of love with these two great but diverse voices. >> they will sing it on the
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grammy's sunday night? >> it will, yes. >> how does it benefit haiti? >> all proceeds, 100% goes to the red cross for haiti relief. >> mary, have you sun with an e andrea before? >> yes, i did on his christmas album. >> what's it like to sing with him? >> it's amazing, a blessing, a gift. >> a challenge? >> he's remarkable. he is absolutely remarkable. i'm so happy, so honored. >> larry: andrea, you are so famous in the world of opera. is "bridge over troubled waters" difficult for you? >> this is a beautiful song. very beautiful song, but i think that in this case, it's a very important song. we know there are many children suffering in haiti. this is the reason why i'm here.
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i love this country. i like very much to sing with mary j. blige, but i know all together we can do big things for many children suffering at this moment. and this is the most important thing. >> larry: david, have you -- it must be something to bring these two together? you produced the christmas album? >> i did. i had help with my friend ron fare. he and ken brainchild this project. when you take these two voices, they're so different. to find the common ground -- >> male and female. >> it took a while to crack the code, and we did. it's an important project. i mean, to talk about haiti, that was almost redundant, and there's a problem down there. >> larry: the song is 40 years old? >> which makes you and i, larry, much older. >> larry: you must know this song from your childhood? >> absolutely.
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my mom used to play the aretha franklin version when i was a child. >> larry: does it have great meaning to you, andrea? does it have great mining to sing the song? >> i remember when i was a child, i knew already the song, and i soang -- i played in the piano bar all evening. and with the money i bought many, many keyboards, it was my passion. >> why don't we go to a karaoke bar together? >> these two singers are so fearless they'll do anything. they come together so beautifully, that's the true mark of a super star, i think. >> larry: how has the haiti story affected you? >> very heavily.
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it's a two-hour plane ride away, so it is home. it's affecting me, not to the extreme it's affecting them. but i have to put myself in their shoes to understand their pain. it is home, i am them. >> larry: how is is the concert tour going? andrea has sold out everywhere. >> we do a lot of work. i love working with them. can you imagine sitting there getting paid to listen to these voices? >> larry: you have a tour come somethinging. >> definitely. when? probably this spring sometime. >> larry: are you going to record more andrea with female singers? >> i like it. i record only with female singers. >> mary, you have an album out right now? >> yes, i do. it's doing so well. >> larry: "stronger with each
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tear"? >> that's right. we're going to hear the song coming up now. we'll see you at the grammy's sunday night. proceeds go to haiti. >> the red cross. >> larry: we have more images of haiti tonight set to mary j. blige's rendition of "each tear." ♪ you're much more than the struggle you go through ♪ ♪ you are not defind by your pain so let it go ♪ ♪ you're not a victim you're more like a winner ♪ ♪ and you're not a defeat ♪ there's a lesson make sure you rise and not fall ♪ ♪ it makes you stronger than you know each tear brings you closer to your dreams ♪ ♪
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