Mrs.Keyle Kneeland is a teacher in Seattle shaping the future of several students and a perfect role model to look up to and grow. Recently she flew down to India and gave us a memorable and touching customer experience.
The experience in Keyle’s words :
“Our trip to India was incredible in every way. The most meaningful part of coming to India was getting to visit Phoenix medical systems and having the chance to purchase two Embrace Nest baby warmers. It was fascinating to tour the facility where the baby warmers are made and to meet the people who are responsible for all the many phases of its production. It was wonderful to learn about the different kinds of work that go in to creating the product, and to see it all first hand was a dream after first reading about this life saving device from ten thousand miles away in my home in Seattle.
Towards the end of our visit, I cried when I told the staff about my purpose for purchasing the baby warmers. Two summers earlier, I worked for three weeks in a Chinese orphanage caring for babies. I met my daughter 13 years earlier in the same orphanage when I adopted her as a one year old. She and I worked together in 2015 at the orphanage, and it was hot, and emotionally exhausting work. Many of the children had physical and cognitive delays and disabilities but we did our best, as did the staff to care for them with the hope that they would someday be adopted and join their forever families around the world.
One evening a small baby was abandoned at the gate. He had been found by the police in a trash can and he was covered in rat bites. He was blue with hypothermia and was struggling to stay alive. His umbilical cord was still attached. He had clearly just been born a few hours earlier.
We had no way to warm this poor little baby other than in our arms and by using warm water and rags.
We were only able to keep him alive for a couple of hours before he died. I was horrified and would never have brought my daughter to China had I realized she would witness such a horrifying event.
We held this babies small lifeless body and cried at the senseless loss of his life and our inability to save him.
Sandra, (the director of the orphanage) said that there is always a reason things happen. This little babies life would have meaning, we just didn’t know what that would be. It might take some time to figure it out, but it would have meaning.
When I returned to the United States, I began searching for some kind of a low-cost incubator that would allow the orphanage to care for premature babies and save the lives of tiny babies who needed extra care and warmth.
I read about the Embrace Nest product made by Phoenix medical systems, and was sure that this product could make a difference in saving lives at the orphanage in the future.
Because it did not have FDA approval, I knew I would need to travel to India to purchase the product. This excited me because I had never been to India, had taught many elementary school students for several years from India and was eager to learn more about Indian culture.
A friend of mine had moved to Chennai to teach so I knew I would be able to stay with her while coming to Southern India where the product was made.
Fast forward two years and there I was, standing with my son and daughter in the office and sharing my story with the staff at Phoenix as I cried remembering the helpless feeling of trying to save that small little baby on the other side of the world two years earlier.
It was all so incredible. I was so thankful to be able to show my children the impact we could make in future lives in China by finding the Embrace Nest and getting it back to the orphanage where she began her life 14 years earlier. All lives have value no matter how poor, how humble, or how much early struggle they may face. Thanks to Phoenix Medical Systems and this product, the Embrace Nest, more babies will live. These babies will grow to impact other lives for the positive.
Thank you Phoenix for helping to give meaning to that little babies life by inspiring me to come to India to purchase the embrace nest. The next time a small baby comes to the orphanage, it will have a better chance of survival. Perhaps it will live. Perhaps that same life will grow in to the young person who grows up to cure cancer or impact world peace. We never know. Yet we can have hope rather than despair at losing yet another young life. That hope will make all the difference in the world. Thank you Phoenix!”
People like Keyle make the world a better place, give more meaning and light in our mission to save the tiny warriors.
