On March 27, 2023, AeroAngel will provide 2-year-old Naomi and her parents a private jet flight from their home near Irvine, California, to Cincinnati Children’s Hospital in Ohio, where Naomi is scheduled for a surgery that could dramatically improve her quality of life. Naomi was born with an exceptionally rare condition called congenital bilateral vocal cord paralysis. Affecting just one in a million, this disorder disables her vocal cords and means she requires a trachestomy tube in order to breathe. The only way Naomi will ever be able to breathe on her own is with a complete airway reconstruction and rib graft, an intricate procedure very few surgeons perform on small children.
After Naomi’s parents were referred to Cincinnati Children’s, they needed to find a safe way for their daughter to travel. Her compromised immune system eliminated crowded commercial travel as an option — it would be too risky to expose her airway to bacteria or viruses. A private jet flight was the answer; however, the cost posed a significant challenge.
After Naomi’s parents contacted AeroAngel about her critical condition, its flight coordinator began work to fulfill the family’s flight request. “For medically fragile children like Naomi, a private jet flight is the safest option,” says Mark Pestal, AeroAngel founder and executive director. “AeroAngel’s unique mission is to offer access to lifesaving medical care for seriously ill children by removing the barrier of long-distance travel to a children’s hospital.”
Naomi’s flight is being made possible through AeroAngel’s corporate partnership with flyExclusive, a national, premier on-demand charter operator. www.flyexclusive.com AeroAngel is also working to coordinate a flight home for Naomi and her family in early April as well as an additional roundtrip flight to Cincinnati for a follow-up appointment in May.
About AeroAngel AeroAngel is a national aviation nonprofit that provides free private jet flights for critically ill children who require travel to distant, life-saving medical care. All flights are conducted on business jets flown by a crew of professional pilots. Founded in 2010, AeroAngel is working to expand its unique flight donation program through its Emergency Flight Fund to serve more of the over 250 children’s hospitals across the country.
For more information, photos or interview requests, please contact Mark Pestal at (303) 548-3426 or mark@aeroangel.org. Those interested in donating can do so online at www.aeroangel.org.