Orthodox Jewish Doctor in Ethiopia 28 Years, Cures Thousands

Finally tonight, our person of the week. He's a dedicated doctor educated at one of America's elite medical schools, John's Hopkins. He is passionate about his patients, and he found his true calling halfway around the world. For me, I wake up every morning and I think of all of these people who were really depending on me to stay alive. Dr. Rick Hodess is an American doctor who went to Ethiopia to help the victims of the famine in the mid1 1980s. 28 years later, he is still there, single-handedly saving hundreds of young lives. He's the subject of a new book and this HBO documentary airing this week. Rick's patients are the poorest of the poor at Mother Teresa's clinic in Addisaba. And he sees afflictions unheard of in the West. Tuberculosis of the spine strikes children here and causes twisted backs, collapsed lungs, and death. Rick has arranged for more than 60 of these children to go abroad for corrective surgery, raising the funds case by case. And case by case, he has taken them into his own home, adopting five of his own to add them to my health insurance. But I realize that if I adopt them, it's a real thing. It's not just like, okay, we're going to go through the paperwork. So if I adopt them, I I become their dad. And I thought about that for a bit and then I decided this is fine. But the cases and the kids kept coming. Now 20 foster children live with Rick, many undergoing treatment. Marilyn Burgerer decided to write a book about Rick and his kids. But when she went to Ethiopia, someone else would change her life. He was crouched down with his hand reaching up for coins. His arms looked to be about the width of a garden hose. He had a dirty green shirt on that covered a back shaped like a pyramid. It was tuberculosis of the spine. Marilyn got the boy to Rick. Danny is very young to have such a serious deformity and he's a beggar, so obviously he's not going to have much of a future and he's never had any medical care. Danny clearly would have died. Rick arranged for surgery for Dany and Marilyn offered to let him recuperate in New York to learn some English. As he brought him, my husband was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. And my husband and I got very fond of him. And as my husband got sicker and sicker and finally died, Danny had moved into our lives. And he's still here, filling a great hole in my life. Marilyn, aged 73, is now raising Danny 8, as her own son. Who says I'm too old to be a mother? There's a lot more lives that needs transforming than I I'm able to do. On the other hand, you know, it says in in my religious book that if you save one life, it's as if you've saved an entire world. And so, we choose Dr. Rick Hodess. So far this year, he has 52 new spine patients just like Danny. 52 more lives changed forever by his healing touch. To find out how to help his organization, log on to our website, the abcnews.com.