Long Beach nonprofit trying to help another young Cambodian heart patient

Doctors in Cambodia examine Bunlak Song, who was abandoned by his homeless birth mother at two days old.

Bunlak Song, 2, needs heart surgery.

07/09/2010
By Greg Mellen, Staff Writer
Long Beach Press Telegram

At a dusty roadside store in Cambodia between Phnom Penh and the Vietnamese border, Peter Chhun found his latest cause, another life in the balance.

Bunlak Song, was only two days old when his homeless mother begged Siv Leng Chuy and Chin Song Hai, who were visiting their adult daughter in the hospital, to take her son. By nightfall the mother left the hospital and her child behind.

Bunlak's adoptive parents scratch out a living selling gas in plastic bottles to local taxis, motorcycles and tuk-tuks in their home village of Kampong Popil. But they have taken the boy in and say he has brought them luck.

However, they need a miracle if Bunlak, who will be 3 in October, is to live a normal life.

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