MIAMI -- A baby born with life-threatening heart defects has come to South Florida from Ecuador to have surgery to save his life. But the 4-month-old's mother needs help to raise money for the costly surgery. On Wednesday, the International Kids Fund appealed to the public for donations.

Dylan Torres has been diagnosed with two congenital heart defects and is in need of a complicated surgery. At Jackson Memorial Hospital, his mother, Johanna Bajana, held the frail baby. He weighs just 10 pounds and doctors say that's half of what he should weigh at his age.

"Without the surgery he would die, no question about it. Now, I don't know if it would be in the next couple of weeks or months, but it certainly would be soon," said Dr. Eliot Rosenkranz of the University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Medical Center.

Dylan has two conditions: Transposition of the Great Arteries (TGA) and Ventricular Septal Defect (VSD). TGA is characterized by a reversal of the connections of the aorta and the pulmonary artery with the heart, and VSD is an abnormal hole between the heart's ventricles.

The International Kids Fund (IKF), a program of the Jackson Memorial Foundation, is hoping to raise $60,000 to save Dylan's life.

The procedure that Dylan needs is an arterial switch operation in which the aorta is connected to the left ventricle, the pulmonary artery to the right ventricle. Doctors will then need to close a hole in baby's heart.

Dylan does not have medical insurance, and his family cannot afford the operation. If Dylan had been born in the U.S., the surgery would have been done within the first two weeks of his life, but in Ecuador there are not resources to perform the operation, Local 10's Elena Echarri reported. Since the child is not a U.S. resident, the public hospital cannot use taxpayers' money to fund the procedure, according to IKF.

To help Dylan, send donations to:

International Kids Fund
Re: Dylan Torres
P.O. Box 2020
Miami, FL 33101

Or call toll-free for information at 1-877-IKF-KIDS (1-877-453-5437).