The aftermath of Haiti's earthquake
At the 20th hour, we told the gate we could not accept any more patients as we still had to get through many, many more. We sent our nurses (except for a few) and our helpers to work in shifts and Grant and I worked on.
We reduced (tractioned bones back in place) open compound fractures, putting tibia bones that were sticking out back into people's legs. We reduced and set many many femur fractures, lower leg fractures, arm fractures. We sutured arms, legs, heads. We put scalps back together and we cleaned concrete out of wounds for hours. We stabilized pelvic fractures and we helped babies with head trauma to breathe on oxygen.
We had three die. One baby, one two-year-old and one 10-year-old. We had four others on the brink of death. We saved a lot. We had no other choice; there was nowhere to send them. At the end of 33 hours, we had discharged all but five. Three wanted to go home to die.
Full of bodies, inside and out
Most hospitals were still not functioning and those that were, were full of bodies, inside and out. Bodies were piled up in the parking lots because there was nowhere to put them. Most of the doctors who used to work at the hospitals were dead or not heard from. Families had nowhere to take their loved ones’ bodies because their houses were crashed down, they still were missing family members or the funeral homes were destroyed...So they left them.
We went home and slept for six hours, and then opened the clinic again. We worked for another 10 hours, seeing the same things. Finally, it stopped. There were no more tap taps running because there was no more diesel.
That same night, our president of missionofhopehaiti.org arrived and we started disaster relief planning with some partner organizations. By this time, reports of what the damage in the country looked like were becoming clear. U.S. and Canadian doctors began arriving from the Dominican Republic to help.
We have 160 staff on our mission and we already know of one that has died; we still have not heard from about 100 staff. Every day when someone shows up, it's joyous to see that they are alive. Most everyone has a family member who has died. One security guard has four children who died.
Many of our Haitian staff suffer severe post traumatic stress after what they have been through or seen. One of our friends was trapped in his school, next to 50 of his classmates who were crushed by the building. He heard them screaming but could not save them. He watched them die, as he was trapped inside for three hours with a dead man on his chest. He was pulled out eventually.
