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Haiden Morgan turned 7 months old Friday, lounging in his father's arms and staring with wide blue eyes at the news cameramen circling his family in a University Hospital conference room.
Nearby, Bobbie Carlisle waited for the crowd to disperse before snapping a discreet shot on her cellphone.
Her equipment may have been modest, but her smile was as large as any other.
"I am so curious to see what he does with his life," said Carlisle, a flight nurse with the AirMed neonatal-care team that accompanied Haiden on the final leg of his improbable journey home to Utah.
Friday was the first time she's seen Haiden since they landed to much fanfare at Ogden-Hinckley Airport in late November — Haiden's earliest days being the subject of international news.
He was born prematurely on Aug. 31, aboard a Caribbean cruise ship that was racing toward port in Puerto Rico. He weighed 1½ pounds and initially was withheld from his mother, Emily Morgan, because medical staff thought he would die soon.
He survived the trip to a Puerto Rico hospital, surrounded by microwaved saline packets and swaddled in towels, and then his transfer to a Miami children's hospital. Fed breast milk through a tube in his stomach, he grew — albeit slowly — as his odds of survival increased.
But his Ogden family had been split apart.
Chase Morgan, Haiden's father, returned to work in Ogden, where 3-year-old sister Chloe had been cared for by her grandparents. Haiden — too feeble to survive a commercial flight — and his mother were stranded in South Florida.
A family friend working at University Hospital shared their situation with AirMed program manager Frankie Hurst, who polled her team: Miami is farther than they had ever flown; are there any volunteers?
"Next thing you know, we were planning this trip to Miami," Hurst said.
Carlisle said they doubled the usual supply load. The AirMed planes do not fly as fast as commercial airliners and have to make multiple stops, so the total duration of the return leg was about 10 hours — 10 hours they'd spend caring for a 3½-pound baby at varying altitudes in a space that rivals the interior of a Volkswagen Beetle.
And yet they offered the flight at no cost to the Morgans, who have raised more than $50,000 through a crowdfunding site to help cover still-mounting medical expenses.
"The fact that I didn't have to call them and that they reached out to us, it was a dream come true," said Emily Morgan.
The flight was delayed for days because of poor weather, and Emily Morgan had to return early. It was nerve-racking to leave her son's side, she said, but she was comforted by the apparent concern of the AirMed crew, which texted photos at each stop.
"It's like they were his parents."
The flight went without incident, Carlisle said. Haiden was restful and in good spirits, such that Carlisle joked: "He doesn't want a pony, he wants an airplane."
From the airport, he was taken by ambulance to McKay-Dee Hospital, where he stayed until Dec. 13 — when he went home almost a week before his due date of Dec. 19.
Emily Morgan said Haiden, now 12½ pounds, is hitting the usual milestones for a child his age.
Twitter: @matthew_piper
Information from The Associated Press was used in this story