"They said, ‘Let’s see what we could do to help.’ They indicated their ability to help financially, but we still needed some medical organization to take his case," he added.
Eventually, Partners in Health located a neurosurgeon who was willing to donate his skills at Yale-New Haven Hospital. Yale Medical Group and medical device manufacturers also donated.
Dr. Ketan R. Bulsara, an associate professor of neurosurgery at Yale, is one of very few doctors in the United States who specialize in endovascular neurosurgery and skull base microsurgery.
In a telephone interview on July 8, he recalled hearing "about the plight of this young Haitian priest and the devastating story of the seminary being wiped out by the earthquake, and [that] the only reason he had survived was because he himself was getting really bad news of a different [type] … that he had this almost inoperable aneurysm.
"The more I read about what Tibeau had gone through and about his problem," Dr. Bulsara said, "I don’t know if there was a way that I wouldn’t be able to help or try to do something for him."
Tibeau was transported to this country by Right to Health Care, a division of Partners in Health.
On April 26, Dr. Bulsara inserted a catheter into an artery in Tibeau’s thigh, and, with the help of real-time X-rays, snaked a platinum coil through the seminarian’s body to the base of the skull and into the aneurysm, blocking off the blood flow.
Without treatment, the surgeon said, the risk of the aneurysm’s bleeding over the course of five years would be 50 percent. Of those that do bleed, 60 to 70 percent of patients die or are left with devastating impairments, he added.
Tibeau recalled awakening after the surgery, which he had been told could be dangerous.
"I felt like a newborn," he said. "I live again. I am raised up from death."
Three days later, he was welcomed to St. Thomas Seminary. Father Small had told Archbishop Henry J. Mansell of Hartford earlier about Tibeau’s scheduled surgery, and the invitation to stay at the seminary was extended.
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"He’s been doing any number of things, like helping with the retired priests and serving Mass on a regular basis," said Msgr. Gerard G. Schmitz, rector of the seminary.
Tibeau spent some days with the Montfort priests in Litchfield, and, more recently, visited New York City and went to Boston for Fourth of July fireworks.
He said he is grateful to the archbishop, Msgr. Schmitz and the seminarians for the welcome he has received. He described Mr. Isaac, his translator, as "my brother."
He will return within weeks to Haiti, where he will be ordained a transitional deacon, after a final follow-up appointment in New Haven. After six months, he will be ordained to the priesthood and be assigned to a parish in Haiti.
His ministry will be one of example.
"My life is not a fiction. It’s a real experience with God. By this experience, I can testify [about] what God can and could do."