Haitian baby who survived quake fast-tracked to Canada

A three-month-old baby boy who survived the violent earthquake in Haiti that killed his mother is being fast-tracked for immigration to Canada.

Josue Angelino Icart was brought to the Canadian Embassy in Port-au-Prince on Friday by his father, Garry Icart, who lives in Ottawa but travelled to Haiti this week to retrieve the son he had yet to meet.

Embassy officials deemed Josue, who was born while Icart was in Canada, a "priority case," and as of 6 p.m. ET, they were processing the family.

Icart, who works as a driver for the Ivory Coast Embassy in Ottawa, saw his son for the first time this week when he arrived in Haiti, where he owns a house. The house was destroyed during the earthquake that struck the island nation on Jan. 12.

Five people died when the building collapsed, including Icart's girlfriend and Josue's mother, Jesula Jean.

The couple's infant son fell into an empty water basin when the roof of the house came crumbling down, and he spent three days trapped in the destroyed home with nothing to eat or drink. A neighbour finally heard him crying and pulled him from the rubble. She took him to a shelter, where he received medical care.

Icart eventually got word that his son had survived. He spent two days trying to reach Haiti's capital city, finally arriving in Port-au-Prince late Tuesday.

The baby was awake and moving but had a deep gash on his head.

"This is a very special baby," said Dr. Henry Frances, who treated the baby at the Haitian Community Hospital in Petionville, a suburb of Port-au-Prince. "The nurses were crying because they thought he was dead, but he wasn’t dead at all."

Frances said the baby has some nerve damage.

"But this is a magical baby — magical," he added.

Jean's body is still trapped under the rubble. Because her body is buried too deeply to be removed, Icart and other family members brought a preacher to the house for a makeshift funeral.