Preterm birth
James Elgin Gill (born on 20 May 1987 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada) was the earliest premature baby in the world, until that record was broken in 2014. He was 128 days premature (21 weeks and 5 days' gestation) and weighed . He survived.
Robert Bartlett (surgeon)
Bartlett reported the first neonatal survivor of ECMO, referred to as Baby Esperanza, in 1976. Baby Esperanza suffered lung damage from meconium aspiration syndrome and she was so sick that ECMO was applied as a last-ditch effort to save her life. The baby spent three days on Bartlett's machine and she recovered.