CLEARWATER - In 2001, after weeks of treating everything from leprosy to parasites, volunteers in India were preparing to close their makeshift clinic when their host breathlessly appeared with an urgent message.
A 14-year-old girl was in trouble.
After enduring labor all night, her baby wouldn't come out.
Not wanting to deal with a breach birth, the midwife abandoned her.
Could Dr. Tonya Hawthorne help?
Hawthorne and others from New Frontiers Health Force frantically drove to the teen's village near the Himalayan mountains. When the road ran out, they hiked in 100-degree heat, amid goat droppings, to the family hut.
"The girl was lying on the floor covered in rags," Hawthorne said. "We said, where's the baby?"
The grandparents and new mom just stared at the dirt floor.
"I yelled again, where's the baby?" she said.
Knowing that in parts of India a firstborn female is often left to die, Hawthorne panicked.
Then she looked in the corner of the room.
"There was a pile of bloody rags," she said. "We found (the infant) under them. She was blue, and the umbilical cord was attached."
Hawthorne shook the child and then tied off the cord with a shoestring from a volunteer's tennis shoe.
"She pinked up quickly," Hawthorne said.
For that act and many more, Hawthorne, founder and president of Clearwater-based New Frontiers, was presented with an award from USA Freedom Corps on Tuesday night at Bon Appetit restaurant in Dunedin.
Hawthorne, who was under the impression the event was simply a fundraiser for her organization, had no idea she was about to be honored by Erik J. Hotmire, special assistant to President Bush and communications director of USA Freedom Corps, a program created by the president after Sept. 11, 2001, to honor volunteers who have given two years or 4,000 hours of community service.
Hotmire flew in from Washington Tuesday to present Hawthorne with the award.
"You know, President Bush often says that it is important for all Americans to get involved with helping a neighbor in need," Hotmire said in his speech. "And tonight, Dr. Tonya, or "Dr. T' as I'm told, and all those who serve with (her) are to be commended for your work."
"Last year, we found 63.8-million Americans volunteered," Hotmire said after his speech. "It's really inspiring."
In November 1998, Hawthorne, daughter of a retired prison guard, left her private practice in family medicine and started the faith-based New Frontiers in her garage.
A lifelong Christian who attends Immanuel Chapel in Largo, Hawthorne said she works with dozens of volunteers of all denominations who share a strong love of God.
Groups made up of physicians, paramedics, nurses and lay people fly to Morocco, Tanzania or Nigeria to help volunteer for monthlong missions. Its operating budget this year is about $180,000, much of it raised through church and private donations.
Volunteers raise their own traveling expenses. For example, they will pay $4,000 to travel to the Sudan in February.
So far, the group has served in 26 countries.
Hawthorne, 43, a board-certified family physician, lives in Clearwater with her three little dogs Lilly, Dudley and Elliott. Never married, she devotes her time to her work.
"I don't think of myself as anyone special," she said. "I'm just fulfilling my God-given destiny."
She grew up in Rockford, Ill., and said she wanted to be a doctor since she was a child.
Her organization is "a walk of faith," said Nancy Papatola, who handles the charity's finances.
"We pray every Tuesday," she said.
Papatola said the trips are not easy.
"You can only bring one carry-on bag and have to be able to carry two 70-pound duffel bags full of medical supplies," she said. "You don't blowdry your hair, you wear scrubs and you rinse out your undies."
The team hauls $500,000 worth of medical supplies on each mission.
Peggy Liss of St. Petersburg is the charity's mobilization and operations coordinator. A 68-year-old retired registered nurse, she felt called to work for New Frontiers.
"We see about 150 people a day," she said. "When word gets out we're here, they come."
Many of their patients have never seen a doctor, taken a Tylenol or even "know how old they are," she said.
"A lady came in to my station," Liss said. "She had to be helped in. She was bent over. She was telling me her head hurt, her knees hurt and her shoulders hurt. I gave her medicine. She held her hands to my face. She touched me. She (knew) somebody cared."
So does baby Gloria, the child rescued in India, who is now healthy and happy.
"We went back last year and saw her," Hawthorne said. "She's a cute little peanut."
