Haiti Update #3

Alex, an acquaintance of mine who is on the ground in Haiti with the medical relief agency Merlin, has been regularly uploading pictures and updates on the situation over there.

20 Jan.

What initially started out as a rather slow day turned out to be one of the most eventful, adrenaline-filled and introspective experience of my life! Oh, and I witnessed a few lives being saved too!

After a rather mundane morning filled with many administrative chores, I found myself in the back of a motorcycle, speaking to the head of our logistics in London, blitzing through the heaviest and most erratic traffic I have ever seen, while signaling to the blue-helmet,UN peace-keeping troops along the way to let us through and hanging on for my dear life! “We have a situation” Tim’s voice echoed through the satellite phone that was dangling from my left ear. Of course we do… You see, as I’ve come to appreciate through this whirlwind of a project, in Haiti, though “everything is possible, nothing is sure!” So, the situation, as Tim went on to explain was that the 3 trucks, filled with 5 tons of medical supplies, had not arrived at the warehouse and that the drivers were actually lost! “There is also talk of looting going on, so we need someone to head towards the airport ASAP, locate the trucks and secure them!”

So, after a quick assessment of the situation at hand (oh boy, barely 5 days of sharing a tent with the logistics leader and I’m already starting to speak like a “Loggie”), I ask the UN guard to recommend a safe driver and vehicle to get me to the airport quickly and safely! I’m not sure if it was the inherent sense of urgency or a pure feeling of disillusionment, but hopping on the back of a passing-by motorcycle seemed to make sense at the time. Off, I went, flying though the dusty streets of Port au Prince, looking for these elusive trucks, as if they were the holy grail! For as long as I’m alive, I will never, ever forget what transpired over the following 20 minutes. With an influx of cars, bikes and pedestrians coming at us the opposite way, we zig -zagged through the convoluted streets of this crazy town, while slapping away pick pocketers and pleading with UN security to let us through closed off streets.

Miraculously, with a great deal of coordination through London, we managed to track down the trucks and secure the cargo, which meant that , in the end, 5 pounds of medical supplies would indeed get to the people of Haiti… Now, who says aid is not getting to Haiti!!!



Aid is getting in – make no mistake!; and Merlin is doing all it can to expedite the process. To paraphrase Golda Meir, “Never doubt the ability of a small, dedicated group of people to change the world… Indeed, it is the only people who ever have!” Though I’ve been quoting this iconic leader for a while now, I’ve never truly understood the meaning of this powerful phrase until recently – until I had the honor of being part of Merlin’s team on the ground in Haiti. Looking back over the past few days and realizing just how much we’ve been able to do – from partnering up with local organizations to finding a suitable, secured area to operate in the midst of one of the worst hit areas, to actually saving life after life, I am truly amazed by how much we’ve accomplished!

Here’s another useful phrase that may not be as inspiring and moving as Golda’s words, but equally relevant…“What exactly happened to you?” – If you ever need to learn French as part of a medical emergency relief effort after a natural disaster, this is precisely the phrase that you must learn… “Qu’est=ce qui vous etes arrivé?”





Bouncing from patient to patient in our newly established “field hospital,” I found myself translating this very query in order to assist Merlin’s medical staff and to help make light of the origins of many complex fractures and various trauma injuries. And though I must confess that my initial tolerance for trauma, blood and severe injuries rivaled my medical knowledge, I’ve surprised myself, lately, with my increasing threshold for such things…



I wish I could recite the names and stories of each patient I met today. What I will never forget however is the opportunity I had to be able to assist Merlin’s medical staff this afternoon. I don’t profess to have a single bit of medical expertise, but I’ve realized, lately, that there is so much more to “medicine” than pure science. The human condition, i.e. connecting with each patient on as much of a personal level as possible, I feel, is truly paramount to making one feel “better.” Perhaps it’s just my way of justifying my medical ineptitude, but I know that in the end, we all did our part today… We all helped as many people as possible, in whatever way we could. And that satisfaction was only heightened by the fact that we managed to get 5 tons of medical supplies through safely!

With every “success story” however, it seems that there are so many glimpses of reality that ground us back to the gravity of the situation. In this particular case, I met a wonderful little girl, Makenle (who’s turning 2 tomorrow) whose mother had been crushed and died during the Earthquake and, as a result, had fallen on top of her and had broken her arm. Just sit back and think about this for a minute… Seeing your own mother dying is one thing, but imagine witnessing such an atrocity in those conditions… a week shy of your second birthday! Makenle also had a pretty bad gash on her head, but we assured her father that in the end, she would be ok.



I fought hard to hold back the tears to translate to her brave dad that for now, all she needed was to get her cut disinfected and that we would put her arm in a cast… At this point, the father uneasily mentioned to me that he didn’t have any money to pay for the cast. I assured him that Merlin would take care of her, free of charge, at which point, I couldn’t hold it anymore…I had to leave and broke down in a corner… Not just because of Makenle but also because of the dignity of her father who, despite having lost his wife and being left alone to take care of his 2 year old daughter, had waited in the blistering sun for hours to explore every option to get Makenle better. And Merlin would provide such services in the end… Again, I couldn’t be prouder!

I’ll never forget Makenle. I hope to come back to Haiti one day and visit her and her father, at which point, maybe I’ll mention to both of them how much they’ve affected me!



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Haiti Update #2

Alex, an acquaintance of mine who is on the ground in Haiti with the medical relief agency Merlin, has been regularly uploading pictures and updates on the situation over there. In case you missed the last one, scroll down or just click here.

19 Jan 2009

Amputations, dead bodies piled up on the streets, a decayed leg found on the ground, the pungent smell of infection and death, crying children in severe pain… To put it simply, today was a very long and hard day!



Despite the overall upbeat spirit of the team, there are times when your idealism is unfortunately overshadowed by the grim reality. So contrary to my normal perpetual optimism, I will be blunt: the situation in Haiti is indeed catastrophic… Scratch that, it is apocalyptic!



Pardon me if this journal entry is not consistent with my usual writing style… The truth is, I’m exhausted, running on pure adrenaline at this point… And yet so much work has yet to be done…I’ll try to be as realistic as possible because in the end, these stories, photos and personal anecdotes will hopefully help to depict just how grave the situation really is!

After what felt like an eventful and productive day, I woke up eager to get started this morning to make some serious progress on setting up our clinic at Delmas 33, one of the worst hit areas of Port au Prince. Surely, our input would be most beneficial there. The rest of the surgical team, along with close to 5 tons of medical supplies were scheduled to arrive later that day which would give us plenty of time to not only prepare for their arrival by securing the logistics but would also give Richard, our surgical team leader, an opportunity to get stationed there for the day to help some of the many injured who most desperately need medical attention. As he accurately put it, the medical focus, at this point, has shifted from mostly lower limb trauma to dealing with infected wounds – a complication that is, under normal circumstances, so easily treatable – or preventable for that matter!

I was really excited to support Richard today and ensure that he would be able to perform his job to the best of his ability… Unfortunately, it’s not that simple – it never is in an emergency! With an assessment team of five of us for the time being, there are so many tasks to be done and so many different hats to wear. So this morning, after dropping off Richard at the Merlin site in Delmas 33, I was en route, with our trusty driver, Gerard to the CNN hotel to drop off some of our video footage, as requested by one of their production crew in the US. As I entered the seemingly luxurious hotel compound (anything seems luxurious I suppose after camping out on an uneven rocky patch of dirt in the far end of the UN compound while sharing a filthy bathroom with about 500 people!), I was reminded that even the big guys (i.e. CNN) were dealing with pure chaos! No one seemed to be able to point me in the right direction, not even Anderson or Sanjay (pictured below).



So after bouncing around from one clueless segment producer to the next, I eventually gave up and just transferred all the video material I had on someone, anyone’s computer… I had to get back to Delmas to support Richard – it was, dare I say, slightly more important than waiting around for indignant press officers!

On the way back to Delmas, Gerard shared a story with me, which I will never forget. As I asked him about the Earthquake, where he was at the time, if everyone in his family was ok, etc… , he told me that his Father had to amputate his wife’s leg with a machete as he was confronted with the existential conundrum that no husband should ever have to face: to cut off your loved one’s limb or to let her die… This brave man courageously did what most would never dare to do: he saved her life. This poignant testimony, compounded by the dead and injured bodies on the streets added yet another component of “realism” to the situation… I simply cannot, nor will I ever be able to put into words the visual magnitude of this devastation.



This vision was only reinforced by my time spent with Richard at Delmas 33, giving medical attention to everyone from a man needing head surgery done on the street...



...to a young boy who had had both of his tiny feet amputated...




...to an elderly man whose hand had been crushed so badly that his hanging, bleeding, infected fingers were the size of a baby’s forearm!

I spent the rest of the day assisting Richard and Andrew, our logistics leader, ensuring that everything would be set up for our team’s arrival.



In the end, we all put in that extra bit of steam to make sure that everything was set in place. We charged our satellite phones, ran franticly in so many different directions(got lost a few times), used whatever contacts we had at this point… all to ensure that in the end, Merlin is ready to do what it does … TO SAVE LIVES.

So here I am now, under a rainy Haitian sky, plugged in to the only outlet in sight, huddled under a flickering light bulb with my friend, the neighborhood rooster, awaiting the rest of the team. Naturally, every hotel was booked up; but I managed to convince this incredibly kind manager (who lost her house in the quake) to let us pitch tents in the hotel’s terrace! It may not be the Ritz Carlton, but it’s secured and close to our medical site. I can’t wait to see the guests’ faces when they get up to get a cup of coffee outside, only to see 10 tents erected by the breakfast tables! Would you like milk and sugar? Or perhaps 4.8 tons of medical supplies?! I guess one positive thing about this dire situation is that I’ve fully come to realize and appreciate the fact that in times of crisis, people DO come together in solidarity.

“We’re all in this together,” I was reminded by this sweet woman…

Yes, we are, YES WE ARE!

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Or just text the word "HAITI" to 90999 to donate to the American Red Cross.

Photos and Updates from Haiti

I was randomly perusing my facebook feed when I saw an update from my buddy Alex who is on the ground in Haiti. He works for a emergency medical relief organization called Merlin and has been really good about updating with photos and blogs and I thought I'd repost his photos and entires to help him spread the word since he's definitely much more important things with his life right now than you or I.

Jan 12
Just wrapping up my day at the office when a New York Times Alert pops in to my inbox, indicating that Haiti, the poorest country in the western hemisphere had been ravaged by a 7.0 Earthquake. I could only imagine how devastating that was for such a precarious island. CNN was already fearing that the death toll would be astronomically high. Surely, Merlin would be responding. It had to! Hard to say exactly what we would do given that the London team was well into the night. Despite the uncertainty, I tried to wrap up my normal activities and finished the day as best I could...

Jan 13
Just as we had all feared, the situation in Haiti is dire. The UN calls it a catastrophe. Merlin mobilizes and decides, unequivocally, to send in an emergency response team to assess the medical needs and to see where it would be best positioned to help medically. As for us in the US, it's full on fundraising for the quake appeal - we would try (and still are trying) to secure $500,000 in relief funds for Haiti. Each new photo, each new testimonial and each new statistic only reaffirms the need. We've dropped everything else and have gone in full emergency appeal mode. It was a long day at the office, but deep down, I was relieved that Merlin was acting so fast and felt proud to be working for such a responsive organization. My job feels somewhat rewarding; though I can only imagine what the island of Haiti is going through!

Jan 14
I wake up to what appears to be a UK number flashing on my cell phone at 6 in the morning. Who could this be? I asked myself in a daze... Half asleep and confused, I answer in somewhat of a professional manner... "Alex speaking." Merlin's Director of Communications subsequently prefaces the call by insisting that she has "an interesting plan." Right away, my heart races and as I turn on the news to get the latest update, this "plan" becomes obvious... "How would you like to head down to Haiti with the Emergency Response Team" to help with the initial assessment? The fact that I am a francophone, compounded by the geographical proximity somewhat made sense as to why she would think of me... But before I could actually process the implications and give it some serious thinking, I responded with an emphatic: YES! Of course I'll go... This is precisely why I work in this sector... Next thing I know, later that night (after shifting a few things around), I was on the red eye to Fort Lauderdale, where I would then hop on a flight a few hours later to Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic to meet the rest of the assessment team and eventually cross over to Haiti by air, land or sea... and that's how it all started - I was off on my first emergency response mission!



Jan 15
Got to DR late that night, met up with the rest of the team, which consists of our trusty team leader, Laurent, our logistics chief, Andrew, Micaela, our lovely medical assessor and Richard, Surgical team leader...



I decide to shamefully order a beer(which would surely be my last for a while), eagerly awaiting what the next day will bring about... Scared, excited, nervous, anxious... you name it! Though the night before, I was told that all air traffic to Haiti was halted, things are uncertain on that front now... The clock is ticking and the air traffic control seems to be filtering some flights – including Humanitarian charters - due to low airport capacity in Port au Prince ("PAP"). Humanitarian teams and equipments all ready and waiting to go on... It seems that it's "standby" for all flights other than Hilary Clinton's who is expected to fly into PaP the next day... Despite my attempts to get her on the phone to coordinate a joint flight, I decide to leave it to fate to see whether or not we go airborne tomorrow...



Jan 16
Leaving for Port au Prince today... It's on! Early start - all equipment and a full team ready. Spirit is high as we reach the airport. All was fixed for us by Laurent's contacts on the inside. Our 5 names are on the flight roster... Everything seems perfect and we're ready to go!. We check in, pass through customs, get on board the 19-seater, the turbo props are on... only to find out that air traffic control has cancelled the flight! It was too good a start but it is only 09:30 am and we may be able to bounce back! A few calls and emails later, we manage to get clearance and eventually take off for PoP, this time more anxious than ever! Surprisingly from the plane, the landscape looks untouched and only on the ground do we realise the true state of emergency – not from infrastructure damages as the airport was un-scattered but from the human chaos starting on the airstrip and parkways. Civilians, journalists and military everywhere... It's, as the UN calls it, a true 'catastrophe.' Helicopters and planes crossing strips in absolute mayhem, increasing the likeliness for more accidents. That day, the US military started evacuating its civilians, we were told. As Richard adequately puts it: we are walking against the flow of traffic! yet, we somehow (again, thanks to Laurent's endless hookups), we somehow secured a bumpy ride from MSF-Fr at the airport and headed for the UN base. Some confusion in the streets but no hostility. People, idle and clueless, are asking for medicines and medical referral. And this all happens within barely one mile of the base!






Jan 17
We wake in tents after setting up our small camp on the UN logistics compound.



We then get together the information and plans for the day. After such a quick and efficient start yesterday afternoon, the spirit is indeed high and the team feels confident. I set off with Richard and a local surgeon to assess the possibility of setting up a Merlin medical base in a town named “Fond Parisien,” about 20 miles south east of PaP while the rest of the team take care of the medical and logistical assessment and coordination in order to ensure a smooth arrival for the 4.5 tons of cargo that is set to be delivered on Monday at 4 pm. What Richard and I both agreed on was that the facility was indeed perfect for a Merlin operation (great medical infrastructure, security and plenty of space) but could pose a problem given the distance from the capital, which, as it turns out, is where the great majority of the casualties lie (more on that later). The team reunites around 3:30 pm to get organized for the rest of the day. At this point, I head off to CNN to drop off some film and photos and to discuss media opportunities. While at the CNN hotel, Richard had an opportunity to put on his “medic hat” as a severely ill woman, with a broken pelvis and internal complications was “dumped” on the steps of the CNN hotel...



After a quick check up, it was clear that the woman did not have much time to survive and needed to be taken to a hospital ASAP! Per our recommendation, her daughters managed to find one nearby, where she would be admitted and given the necessary attention. At this point, Richard has already had a successful live interview on “the 6 oclock” news – BBC. It should be noted that just before the interview, Richard and I had an interesting experience whereby, on our way back to PoP, we came across a bridge that had just collapsed about 2 minutes before!



The incident set the tone quite nicely for Richard’s subsequent interview! Now, we’ve all reconvened at the UN cafeteria to discuss our impressions, assessment and opinions, plan for the next day, all while trying desperately to assemble what one might consider a respectable supper – a luxury compared to the “instant meals” that have had to due on several occasions thus far... I think I'll treat myself to a few gummy bears before shaking up with my tent-mate Andrew for the night...

TOMORROW, WE'VE GOT THE REST OF OUR MEDICAL STAFF LANDING (12) ALONG WITH 4.5 TONS OF MEDICAL SUPPLIES! THINGS ARE MOST CERTAINLY MOVING ALONG, YET THERE IS SO MUCH MORE TO DO.... UPDATE SOON



If you haven't donated yet, donate now!

Or just text the word "HAITI" to 90999 to donate to the American Red Cross.