9/11 WIDOW SPONSORS HEART SURGERY FOR CHILD WHO SURVIVED ACCIDENTAL CIVILIAN BOMBING IN KOSOVO

Retired Air Force Officer Connects Boy with Heart Defect to NYU Medical Center and Project Kids Worldwide

New York, NY- (August 27, 2003) – NYU Medical Center’s Chief of Cardiothoracic Surgery and co-founder of Project Kids Worldwide, Stephen B. Colvin, MD, announced today that he will perform heart surgery on Alban Hasanaj, an eight-year old boy from Kosovo. Alban is a survivor of an accidental bombing by NATO USAF F-16 fighter aircraft on April 14, 1999. A bomb hit a civilian convoy of vehicles, tractors, and horse carts fleeing the Serbian invasion. A second bomb then hit the Hasanaj farmhouse and Alban’s father was killed. He, his mother, and two siblings survived.

Retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel, David McFarland, a former Phantom reconnaissance navigator and Vietnam veteran, now living in Alabama, contacted the National American Albanian Council in New York for assistance. They directed him to Project Kids Worldwide, a non-profit organization that collaborates with international social agencies in medically underserved regions around the world to provide life-saving heart surgery for children.

Via the Internet, McFarland also connected with Dr. Lazar Berisha, an Albanian dentist in New York. While helping make arrangements for Alban’s trip, Dr. Berisha, who was born in Gjakova, a city close to where the Hasanaj family currently resides, found, to his surprise, that Alban and he were distant cousins.

Coincidentally, Jacqueline Gavagan, whose husband, Donald, died on 9/11 at the World Trade Center was looking for a child to sponsor for heart surgery this September in Donald’s memory. Gavagan had been a bond trader with Cantor Fitzgerald for several years. When he died, Jacqueline established The Donald Richard Gavagan, Jr. Fund in partnership with Project Kids Worldwide. Jacqueline was determined to raise money for children in need of heart surgery and sponsor at least one child each year close to the 9/11 anniversary.

Less than six months prior to 9/11 the Gavagan’s own son, Donald, III, then 2 ½, underwent surgery by Dr. Colvin to correct a congenital heart defect. Jacqueline is committed to helping sick children so that her own children will never forget what a great humanitarian and hero their father was. To date, she has raised funds that provided heart surgery for a 7-year old boy from Kosovo and a 16-year old Nigerian girl.

Jacqueline and her three children are looking forward to meeting Alban and his mother, Ladje. Both women have survived tragic losses, share the common challenge of a child with congenital heart disease, and are hopeful that their husbands’ sacrifice will never be forgotten.

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