Will Work for MREs Haiti 2010

Transcription

1 Will Work for MREs Haiti 2010 The 2010 Haiti earthquake was a catastrophic magnitude 7.0 Mw earthquake. Its epicenter was near the town of Léogâne, approximately 25 km (16 miles) west of Port-au-Prince, Haiti's capital. The earthquake occurred at 16:53 local time (21:53 UTC) on Tuesday, 12 January Like millions of people across the world I watched in disbelief as the reports of the catastrophic nature of the earthquake reached us. Tens of thousands of people killed. Hundreds of structures effected. As the minutes, hours and days passed the numbers climbed rapidly. Pictures of the devastated capital echoed across the internet and on CNN. Anderson Cooper was on the ground giving us a day by day account of the relief efforts, the devastation and of the resilience of a nation that has endured so much. Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. In the summer of 2008, tropical storm Fay and hurricanes Gustav, Hanna and Ike, ravaged Haiti, causing nearly 800 deaths and further weakening the already crumbling infrastructure. My immediate reaction was to donate $100 dollars through the World Bank s egive program to The Red Cross and Doctors without Borders. The World Bank would then match the donation. I figured that this was the best way my family and I could assist during this crisis. On Friday, January 22, 2010, just like most Friday nights, I was on duty as a volunteer firefighter at the Kensington Volunteer Fire Department in Kensington, MD. I was assigned to drive our Engine (Engine 705). It was a rather slow night call wise so I happened to come across the George Clooney, MTV team for Haiti quake relief telethon. What we saw was a number of powerful performances from U2 s Bono and Rhianna in London, Sting, Alicia Keys, and Christina Aguilera, Haitian-born star Wyclef Jean and many more. Among many of Hollywood s A-list answering the phones and accepting donations were Steven Spielberg and Jack Nicholson. Speaking to the people watching the telethon were Tom Hanks, Muhammad Ali and Chris Rock, Julia Roberts and many more. The emotions I felt are hard to describe there must be something else that I can do. So I logged into the firehouse computer and searched for the Embassy of Haiti website. There I found three addresses that people wishing to assist could communicate with the Embassy. If you are offering your assistance and are in the medical field, please direct your to earthquakerelief-med@haiti.org

2 I first consulted with my family and them with my managers. I expressed to them my urge to go to Haiti for 7-10 days and provide medical relief assistance. With their approval and blessing I then sent the Embassy of Haiti an letting them know that I am an EMT (Emergency Medical Technician) and Firefighter. After numerous s and phone calls back and forth with the person in charge (Sylvia Standards) I was confirmed on a charter flight for Sunday, February 14, 2010 Valentine s Day. I just had to find a way to get to Miami International Airport by 1:00PM on that Sunday. Day 1 Sunday, February 14, 2010 I was going to Haiti as part of a relief effort organized and financed by the Churches of Scientology. I knew very little about the organization. I knew that John Travolta and Tom Cruise were members. I arrived in Miami and met up with a sea of volunteers most of them wearing yellow shirts that read Churches of Scientology, Volunteer Minister. We must have had about 60 or so volunteer joining the effort to help the people of Haiti. While checking in with Vision Airlines (our charter flight) we helped unload a 24 Budget rental truck packed with MREs (Meal Ready to Eat), bottled water, tents, sleeping bags, and many more supplies. We landed safely in Haiti at the Toussaint Louverture International Airport. The airport was still not open to regular commercial flights and the airspace in and around Port-au-Prince was being managed by the US forces. There were tents all over the airfield grassy area, spotlights powered by generators, helicopters, army vehicles and lots of crated supplies all over the area. Shortly after landing it started to downpour. I, along with the handful of medical personnel, was lucky enough to be under a large tent waiting to register with the in-charge authorities. After a lengthy and hot wait a yellow van arrived to collect us and our bags and take us to our base camp somewhere in the outer edge of the city center. We entered a secure house area three solid walls with razor security wire, a heavy metal rolling entry door, a couple of two-story concrete houses and a number of desert tents all along the courtyards area. The medical team was given the second floor of Building #2. We felt lucky until we realized how many mosquitoes were waiting to suck our blood! Being a good sport, I took one for the team and attracted all of the flying vampires to feast on my sweet blood. By the second day I looked as if I had measles or chicken pox. I stopped counting at 50 bites. On an upshot these bites did not itch that much. The area where our base camp was located, I believe, was called Santo. Day 2 - Monday, February 15, 2010 After sleeping on the floor (on top of a few layers of foam mats and sleeping bags), we started the day with getting to know each other and planning for our first mission. The medical team cramped inside two

3 Haitian taxis (they call them top-tops) and headed for a make shift clinic at an old amusement park. There were hundreds of people from the surrounding neighborhoods that had come to this clinic to get medical assistance. The clinic was operated by a few relief organizations and staffed by mostly American doctors, nurses and other medical professionals. A few of our medical team members worked in the triage area while other worked in the ER. The saw patients with medical conditions like diarrhea, high blood pressure, dehydration, headaches, hernias, wound care, UTIs (urinary tract infection), psychological trauma and much more. Those who spoke did not speak French and/or Creole worked with a translator. Alex, Edward and I joined one of the organizers (Ricardo) to go help the 82 nd Airborne at an IDP (internally displaced person) camp. However, we first had to help unload a huge covered truck that has just arrived with hundreds of boxes of MREs. We formed a line and worked under the hot sun. I was chosen to enter the box truck and work in there for minutes until I almost passed out from the heat and exhaustion. After a short ride we arrived at the IDP camp and met up with a Canadian-Haitian firefighter Alberto Syllion and together with the 82 nd Airborne assisted the locals in installing some new state of the art tents compared to the make shift tents of sheets and blankets they had. Day 3 - Tuesday, February 16, 2010 On day three the medical team together with Volunteer Ministers headed for an IDP camp about 15 minutes away. At this camp lived approximately 2000 people. The living conditions were not the best and these people were in needed of both medical assistance and human assistance. We setup our office under a tent, arranged our medical supplies of wound care, Tylenol, ibuprofen, antacids and such and setup a few chairs for pediatrics, a chair for the midwife, a couple of chairs for wound care and a bench outside for what the Churches of Scientology calls touch assists. In the touch assist, a Scientologist repeatedly touches a person near the injury and while calling attention to the touch. This process is claimed to reestablish communication and promote healing. We worked all day, taking a small break for lunch. It was really difficult to do this in front of people that are hungry and thirsty yet at the same time if the rescuers do not take care of themselves they become part of the problem and not the solution. We must have seen people that day. It was a really rewarding experience to be able to tent to the wounds of a small boy who has injured their foot. The day before a smaller team had visited the same camp and cleaned and bandaged a young boys ankle. This day we saw him again to re-evaluate his wound and clean and re-bandage it again. The healing process had already begun and it looked much better than the first day. A simple process of cleaning a wound, applying antiseptic ointment and bandaging the wound thus creating a barrier between the body and the infection prone environment they live in can make the difference between someone losing a limp due to infection.

4 The last hour of our stay at this camp might very well have been the most healing part of the day. With all the patients seen we focused our attention to the kids. We blew up medical gloves and drew silly pictures and handed them to the kids. We hugged them, picked them up and took lots of pictures. The smile on their faces was all the payment we needed and re-energized our commitment to why we were there. We arrived back at our base camp before nighttime, each one settling down on a corner of the courtyard, MRE in hand, going over the day s events. By 8:30pm I was so exhausted I brushed my teeth, took my meds and turned into bed. Good night my beautiful wife and kids. Day 4 - Wednesday, February 17, 2010 Today, the medical team along with a group of Volunteer Ministers packed again into two top-tops. This time we were going into ground zero the center of Port-au-Prince. Until now we operated in the outskirts of the capital where damage was minimal. Today we were going north of the city center, around the area of Delmas, along the Route de Delmas road where it intersected Delmas 75. We were headed for an orphanage and then a clinic. The top-top I was in was so heavy and the hills we were climbing so steep we had to offload a number of guys and push the truck up the hill. The orphanage had around kids and a few adults. We setup our medical supplies and staff and started evaluating the kids. We had an abundant number of resources so I focused on a special project handing out toys by two boys packed for me to give to the children of Haiti. These were simple McDonald s toys my boys no longer played with but for the kids here it might as well have been gold! After about an hour or so, we packed our supplies in the top-tops and marched about a mile or two through the city neighborhoods to the clinic. The devastation was very visible: building with large cracks, buildings with partial collapse, leaning this way or that way, buildings that had totally collapsed in a pancake fashion. Whatever electricity they once had now was gone as electrical wires hung from almost every pole to the ground. The few clinic staff that operated at this clinic were very delighted to see us. Once again we setup our various areas. I was in charge of wound care at the very back of the building. Together with Alex (an EMT from New Mexico) and David (and Volunteer Minister from Stuttgart, Germany that had worked at a hospital for a year) we treated about 7-10 patients. One of them will stay with me for a long time. He was about 70 years old. He came in limping. He had a cheap pair of plastic sandals on. His left heel was swollen and infected at the site of a quarter size hole that was so deep we could clearly see his

5 bone. This man needed to see a surgeon. With gloves on we treated his wound with water (flush) and hydrogen peroxide to clean as best as we could his open wound. We then applied a generous amount of antiseptic ointment. Then covered the open wound with a sterile 4x4 dressing and rapped it with a 4 cling. We explained to him that he needed to go to a hospital and have a doctor look at his wound. We even tried to call a medical transport for him. But just as quickly as he entered the clinic, he was gone. At this clinic I spread more joy to the young by distributing the rest of the toys I had brought with me. At some point word spread that an American was giving out toys and I was soon mobbed by kids of all ages to the point that they were ripping the plastic girls toy bag I had they toys in. It caused a moment of chaos I just hope that they find a way to share the toys and get a few moments of happiness. Day 5 - Thursday, February 18, 2010 Today was a frustrating day. Transportation and logistics issues pretty much derailed much of our day. We split up our medical team into 4-5 sub-teams. The team I was assigned to, along with some Volunteer Ministers was tasked to go back to the IDP camp we visited on day 3. We were told that we needed to work with the camp administrators and people and help them get better organized and clean. Word was that the food distribution networks would not deliver supplies unless the living conditions were improved. Once we got there we noticed that a Turkish relief organization had established itself there with medical personnel. An in all honesty, the conditions at the camp were not that bad. Without a clear purpose we spread some joy with the local kids, playing soccer, letting them hang on some of the guys like monkey bars. There was this 6-7 year old that had a t-shirt with Sponge Bob Square Pants so I started singing the theme song Oh! Who lives in a pineapple under the sea? SpongeBob SquarePants! These kids had no clue what I was talking about but they repeated as best as they could SpongeBob SquarePants! Day 6 - Friday, February 19, 2010 Friday was by far the least productive day as a medical team member. We waited all morning for transportation that never arrived. We were then told that we would go with one of the group organizers to the University of Miami Hospital at the airport but this too was canceled at 3:00pm. I spent the day resting, cleaning our living quarters and watching some of the guys built picnic tables from 2x4s and plywood sheets. When some of the other teams returned from their missions they were very impressed and very happy to be able to sit at a table and eat their dinner!

6 Day 7 - Saturday, February 20, 2010 and Day 8 - Sunday, February 21, 2010 For the weekend, the medical teams where organized in day shift and evening shift and assigned to work at the General Hospital in Port-au-Prince next to the Palace. The hospital is staffed by Haitian doctors and nurses mostly during the weekday daytime, but during evenings and all weekend it is staffed only by volunteer relief organizations. The hospital has suffered extensive damage to the buildings and for the most part is operating in tents. One of the buildings that collapsed was the nurses ward we were told that none of the nurses made it out alive. A large part of our medical team now also included EMTs, Paramedics, nurses and doctors that are part of the Bedford-Stuyvesant Volunteer Ambulance Corps, from Brooklyn, NY. Most of the BSVAC volunteers are Haitian or of Haitian origin and spoke French and/or Creole. I was assigned the day shift, operating between 08:00 19:00 hours. Our team was assigned in Triage, Pediatrics and Maternity. In Triage alone we saw over 1000 patients on Saturday and probably another patients on Sunday. We treated severely dehydrated people, lots of internal medicine issues, a number of cases of wounds, some serious illnesses such as Malaria and sepsis (full body infection). Three cases are still very fresh in my mind: First was a seven year old boy who was brought by his father. The story was that he refused to wear shoes and while playing near some rubble he injured himself on some metal. He had a 2-3 laceration at the outside part of his right ankle. I cleaned it with alcohol swabs, had a doctor evaluate it for stitches and was told that as long as the bone was not showing to treat it with antiseptic ointment and dress it (which I did). Then the father pointed to the bottom of his foot. It was covered with blood. I had thought that it was from his ankle but further evaluation under the dim light in the ER tent during the evening time I noticed that his second digit on his foot (next to his big toe) the flesh was dangling. Wow. I proceeded to clean the area as best as possible, dress it up to prevent more microbes from entering this open wound and passed care to one of the doctors who would add a couple of stitches. Second was an older man who was brought into the triage area by his daughter or granddaughter. He has fallen down the stairs and had a pretty good cut on his head. We cleaned and bandaged his head and then did an assessment of his entire body. We noticed that he had wood grip (neurological test) yet he could barely lift his left arm. He was sent for X-Rays and the film revealed a broken shoulder (possible the Humerus). I am so glad we did not sent him home without the X-Ray. Third was a middle aged, hard working man. He arrived at the hospital with his t-shirt wrapped around his head. It was soaked in blood. Lenel Caze, the Paramedic from BSVAC and I treated him. We cleaned his head and assessed the damage. He had a good 2 gash that would need stitches. The doctor asked if we knew how to use a staple gun. Lenel was shown by Dr. Naomi how to do one and he proceeded to staple the second one. It is just like using a staple gun for construction. It is amazing how much medicine one is allowed to practice in a disaster area. Doctors can actually practice medicine without the constant worry of billing and law suits. Here is the sad part this man was working to clear rubble. He approached the people in charge to

7 ask for his payment and instead they gave him a beating. He did not speak any English except for God Bless American and Thank You. As he was leaving we gave him a scrub shirt so that he did not have to wear his blood soaked t-shirt. At some point during the afternoon of Sunday I joined with a part of our medical team in one of the pediatric tents. In this tent were kids most with amputated legs and/or arms and external fixation brace (for holding together severely broken legs). The team lined up on the middle and started singing and dancing Hokey Pokey You put your right foot in, You put your right foot out, You put your right foot in And you shake it all about. You do the Hokey Pokey And you turn yourself around, That's what it's all about. The kids were having a blast, laughing and singing along. A five year old boy with one arm missing the one arm bandit was racing between our legs. Then we asked one of the mothers to singing it in Creole! Day 9 - Monday, February 22, 2010 At 4:30am local time we were awakened by a 4.7 magnitude earthquake. The rooms shook pretty violently and there was a loud noise. With a level of panic, those of us in the buildings and on the second floor rushed to exit the building. There were no lights since the generators are turned off at night. We all made it out safely with one injury. Once of our nurses from the Washington, D.C. area (Sylvia) missed six stairs and feared that she had broken her foot. We used a piece of cardboard and one of my KVFD shirts for padding and secured her leg. We transported her to the University of Miami Hospital for further evaluation by doctors and X-Rays. Thankfully the X-Rays cleared any bone injuries and the orthopedic doctor diagnosed her with a sprain. What a relief. He applied an ace bandage and secured her foot with an orthopedic walking boot. By the time we returned to the base camp around 8-9am she was smiling and later walking. Monday was also the day that eight members of our group, including me, were headed back home. It was also the day the medical team had been granted a day off to recharge their batteries. Carlos Fernandez, the Yellow Van driver was among the staff leaving. He had been in Haiti for four weeks, going on his fifth. Carlos is from New York City. What an amazing person. David from Germany was headed to Clearwater, FL where he was going to spent a week talking to members of the Churches of Scientology about his experience and raising funds for the cause. Maria from Mexico was also headed

8 to Clearwater, FL to visit friends and family before returning to Mexico. Sue Taylor is from Washington, D.C. and was headed home (just like me). Sity, our homeopathic medicine professional and midwife was headed to Georgia where she had to deliver a number of babies. She has promised to get her next class of midwives and return to Haiti in May. We headed for the University of Miami Hospital at the airport where the charter plane passengers were to gather prior to the flight. We spent most of the afternoon under the hot sun and moved to the airport terminal around 7:30pm. We packed our bags in a truck and then loaded people in SUVs and one more truck like cattle going to the slaughter house. It was quite a sight to see! There plain was delayed and get information was hard. Around 9:30 or 10:00pm a US forces member announced that due to lack of power on the runway and thus no landing strip lights, all flights were canceled for the night. We had a choice of returning to the University of Miami Hospital grounds or stay at the airport tarmac. Half of us decided to spent the night at the airport, under the stars. The US forces provided us with water, food and security all night long (hurray to our service men and women). During the night we felt another 4.7 earthquake. This time there was no need to run for cover. Day 10 - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 The most beautiful site arrived around 9:30am our Boeing 737 Vision Airlines charter flight from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. There were rumors earlier that they could not locate the pilot. Was he still sleeping? Was he hung over from a night of drinking? Was he kidnapped? Thankfully none of the rumors were true. By 11:00am we had all boarded the plane and took off for Miami, FL. From there I boarded a flight to Washington, D.C.