Haiti: "Today is a day beyond words"

Email from my mom:

Yesterday was another busy day for Mark and the team.

General comments from him:

"Today is a day beyond words."

"I have never seen so many dead limbs in my life. This will become a country filled with amputees."

"Rehabiliation specialists and plastic surgeons are going to be in dire need in the coming months."

"Sepsis (bacterial infection) is setting in with many of the injured."

"The entire country was riddled with earthquakes."

Mark started the day at the church medical clinic in Port au Prince. The young woman with the lateral gash on her forehead was feverish from the 3rd degree burns on her foot & ankle in addition. So he loaded her up and took her to a Choa (?) center that had been set up by the airport and used as a triage center for the injured. But it was basically gone when he arrived- only a few tents and no staff. It seems like some of the tent facilities come and go depending on staffing and need. So then he took her to another tent facility and they were willing to take her and give her 24 hour coverage as in a hospital.

Many of the team then gathered supplies and headed south to another LDS chapel in an area that was hit by the earthquake but hadn't had much medical attention. They got there and continued to see infected wounds and burns. After about 30 minutes, they heard noise out in front of the church and saw a man and his brother and his son who had just showed up. It was one of those images that Mark said he'll never forget. The man and his brother were carrying the man's son in a chair mounted on 2 sticks. Mark said it was the kind you see in pictures of Cleopatra or some royal person being carried through the crowds, except this was just two simple sticks and a broken chair all roped/wired together for this young 9 year old boy. The trio had been traveling for 2 days down from the mountains and because of the boy's injuries, this was the only way to get the boy out of the mountains. The boy's mother had been killed in the earthquake and this was the family's only child. They had stopped at various towns/villages as they made their way down the mountain but there wasn't any medical help along the way, just more devastation. So they were happy to know that there were medical personnel in this community. The boy's arm was basically crushed and dead. Mark said that the hand had turned black and was like jello. The boy had a fever of about 103-104 degrees and only had a few more hours to live before infection would take over his entire body. So they found a pick up and rushed him to the University Hospital where his arm was amputated up to the shoulder. They are hopeful that he will survive. Mark has heard that the people in the mountains don't have much to begin with and it is an area that has been turned upside down like Port au Prince but with much less medical and media attention.

A US medical student from Fort Worth has been working on and off with the team. During one of his last days, he went on his own to an orphanage out in the country. There was a building but due to its instability, all of the kids were outside in the yard, many of them injured. He fell in love with a little girl there and wanted to adopt her on the spot. But he was told that he will need to go home, get a background check and health/home approval, fill out the proper papers and come back in a couple of weeks. So unless you have adoption papers in process, it sounds like most of the children still need to be adopted through some governmental channel. And that's probably for the best because there could be a possibility of these children falling into the sex/labor trade channels if future homes are not approved and verified. So for all of you that asked if Mark could bring home a baby, I don't think it will work.

Good news- Dr. Rob Sheridan from Boston's Mass General was able to see Fedeline, the 12 year old girl with the burns on her scalp. Mark finished his day yesterday by going to visit her and found people filling out forms for her visa to the US. If all goes well, she will be flown to either Boston or Miami for further care and surgeries by today or tomorrow.

The phone transmission was not very good yesterday so it was a short conversation and I think he had more to share. His plans are to fly home Wednesday night. He'll be staying with members of the team at the airport on Tuesday night because they leave early in the morning. Another team from LDS Humanitarian Services is flying in and they will be using their plane to fly out.

He thanks everyone for their words of support and encouragement. He said the devastation is immense but there are many rescue and medical teams from all over trying their best to make a difference. He also said the Haitians are a loving and kind people who are grateful for what is being done.

Alice