Two 5-year-old Russian boys have undergone heart surgeries in a Long Island hospital, thanks to a local charity that financed medical procedures their families couldn't afford in their homeland.
Kiril Polyansky and Artem Sarafnov recently underwent surgeries to close tiny holes in their hearts.
Their families couldn't afford the procedure in Russia, so a group called the Gift of Life brought them more than 4,600 miles from home to St. Francis Hospital in Roslyn.
A surgeon at the hospital corrected the congenital defects using a device called th St. Jude Medical Amplatzer Duct Occluder, and the boys were discharged Thursday.
"He doesn't know he had heart surgery," said an interpreter for one of the boy's mothers. "She told him he was gonna take a kind of space flight."
A group of Manhasset high school students raised more than $10,000 for the boys.
The two boys responded with the only English they know: "Thank you."
