Letters from Haiti
Rod Huebbers
Rod Huebbers, a CCH Board member, provides this summary of his experiences in Haiti with the Jacmel teams:
January 24, 2010
I returned home late Saturday evening after spending 4 days in Jacmel, Haiti. Jacmel, along with Port au Prince, was one of the worst hit areas being only 8 miles from the epicenter of the earthquake. Although you see it on television, you can never be prepared for the magnitude of human suffering when you see it with your own eyes. Candidly, there are many things that I don't really care to talk about, at least not at the moment, and there are memories that I can only hope I forget, yet on the other hand there are many that I will cherish.
My job was to safely bring in my team of 4 physicians (OB, Gen.Med,ED and Peds Intensivist), 3 nurses (1 peds and 2 critical care) and an OR tech. To get there, we flew to West Palm Beach Fl. and took a shuttle van to Ft. Pierce. From there we flew a DC-3 cargo plane to Cap Haitian, Haiti, stopping to refuel on Exuma Island in the Bahamas.
In Cap Haitian, we boarded a small twin prop "cargo" plane, sitting on the floor of the cargo hold. If the plane had been a passenger plane, it would have carried 8 people plus the pilot and co-pilot. As a cargo plane, it carried our bags plus the 8 of us, jammed in knees to chest. No windows, just the ability to look over the pile of bags into the cockpit. We flew 30 minutes to Jacmel, making the final approach on such a sharp angle that I could look from my vantage point on the floor through the cockpit window and see the runway. We leveled off at the last minute and landed safely. I share these details with you because 2 days later, the same plane, with the same pilots making the same approach (bringing in, ironically, medical supplies for us) crashed on landing. Luckily, the pilots walked away with only minor injuries, but the plane was a twisted wreck.
We joined the rest of our team that had arrived the day before. We set up our "tent city" in a Catholic convent, and then went to St. Michelle's Hospital in downtown Jacmel.
Of the 6 buildings on the hospital grounds, 2 were destroyed and one was partially destroyed. Patients were everywhere outside, in makeshift wards- OB, Surgery, General Medical. Our full team now consisted of the above folks that I brought in, plus an orthopedic surgeon, and ED doc, and two ED nurses.
Initially, the Canadian Armed Forces medical corp. was there and we worked side by side with them. Late Wednesday a small contingent Cuban medical team arrived. On Thursday, the Canadians pulled out early in the morning to go and set up a clinic down at the port of Jacmel. That left us as the only medical team on the ground, as the Cubans had, for the day, gone to a rural area. To say the place was in chaos is an understatement. We met with the Regional Minister of Health on Wednesday evening, along with about 30 other NGO's (non-government organizations) from the US, Israel, Cuba, Switzerland, Canada, and France.
Without getting into details as to the "how", I ended up being "selected" to take over the hospital operations.
The next day we set up 2 triage stations, one at the soccer stadium in town, and one in the front section of the hospital. We also had the OR up and running, and had turned a post op area next to the OR into a supply depot / pharmacy as well as a minor surgery/procedure area where we could do small amputations (fingers and toes) and debride wounds. The OR was in the intact half of the building that had been partially destroyed. Literally, within minutes of getting everything set up, and getting our first patients into the minor room, we had a 6.1 aftershock. I can personally attest that the floor does move up and down in an earthquake! Everyone got out without any injuries, but one of the intact buildings partially crumbled, and clearly we couldn't go back inside the "OR" building to do cases anymore as it was not safe. It probably wasn't safe to begin with, but you had to work with what you had! The aftershock was one of about 3 per day that we experienced. Most were around the 4-4.5 range, but we did have a 5.9 in the middle of the night on Thursday.
The Cubans came back, and the net is that they had a small mobile operating room that they set up to get back in business, although we were limited in what could be done.
By the last day, it truly was a sight to see - the Haitian doctors and nurses were taking care of the general medical issues (people still got the flu, had hypertension that needed to be treated, etc...), working alongside my team who were dealing with all of the wounds, small amputations, fractures etc. The Cubans were right next to us and they were taking the smaller surgical procedures, and anything major we transferred out to a hospital with a full functioning OR about 30 minutes away.
Over the course of our stay, we treated over 800 patients, did countless amputations, witnessed the miracle of a baby being found alive in the rubble of a collapsed building after 8 days, and saw the pain and anguish of a family when they found their young husband/father dead in another crushed building.
There was a silent prayer as we went by the school that had collapsed, entombing 44 students for eternity, yet we witnessed the miracle of a women who we all thought was not going to make it, only to find her the next day sitting up, eating, and making a miraculous recovery.
One cannot try to figure these things out, as only God knows the purpose and reason for all of His actions, and we have to accept them as best we can. The horrors that we saw and faced were balanced by the fact that we could and did make a difference. I am immensely proud of my team, for their courage, their faith, and their ability to serve others above self. All of us on the team know that our lives have been forever changed. We knew that going in. And to a person, each and every one, we know that every second we were there was worth it.
Thank you for your prayers and your friendship.
Your friend in Christ,
Rod