Friday, February 5, 2010-The Day We Arrive

We arrived in Santo Domingo Airport around 6am, after flying overnight on Jet Blue. M. slept the entire flight; T. awake all night. This would become a common thread throughout the trip, M. sleeping and T. not sleeping; one of many yin and yang experiences we had.

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We were able to bring a lot of supplies needed for the care of amputations, skin grafts, wound care and preventing pressure sores with us. This is due to the generosity of our many "sponsors"-friends, family members and patients of ours who generously contributed, allowing us to purchase many supplies. We were able to transport so much bulk on a commercial airline thanks to Dr. Richard Leinhardt and Jet Blue. Jet Blue permitted us to bring bags that were both larger in number and over-sized than normally permitted. We spoke to other volunteers who were also permitted by Jet Blue to bring oversize equipment for the relief effort, without extra charge. After arriving SD, we took a small plane to the airport in Barahona, a 30 minute plane ride. Another yin/yang moment. T., a "reluctant" flier on jets is extremely happy in this small plane. M., normally a very happy flier on jets, turns green at the sight of this plane.

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It was there that we first met Elvis, who drove us the 2 hours to the "hospital" and would become our most trusted companion. He lives in Jimani, the village where our medical facility is located. Elvis would drive us to and from our lodging and the hospital, take us on errands and back to Barahona Airport. T. thinks he developed a crush on M. when he realized how well M. speaks Spanish (Elvis speaks very little English). Elvis is always impeccably groomed, wearing what appear to be pressed jeans and clean polo shirts in bright colors.


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On the way from the airport to Jimani, located at the end of Route 46 on the map and right across the border from Haiti (upper left hand corner on above map), we passed through many villages. Some of the houses are concrete with ribarb; others are made of wood and extremely primitive. Within the same village some have cell phones and scooters while others live in abject poverty. We arrived at the hospital around 7am. The plastics team we were relieving was a bit shaken as the day before, the pilot and helicopter owner, who had been flying our plastics team into Haiti to visit injured children in an orphanage on their chopper, had been killed when the chopper crashed. It was on the news in the US.

The "hospital" is really a 2 story building that was intended to be a clinic. There is a separate building for the chapel and a 3rd building called the orphanage, originally intended to house orphans. The patients, about 300 in total, were staying in the orphanage. Some patients are in rooms with walls while the "ER" patients are in an open air pavilion with tent flaps on one side to break the wind. In between the orphanage and the hospital is a big expanse of rock covered dirt, which is where many patients used to be "housed", lying on the ground. In this area is also where the choppers would land to drop off and pick up patients. Many patients had been airlifted out by helicopter in the days prior to our arrival and so when we arrived all the patients were housed either in the orphanage or in tents behind the hospital.

Most of the patients we saw had wounds that needed treatment, amputations, external fixator devices for extremity fractures, and infected wounds. There is an extremely high number of amputations. Most patients had family members with them. All of the patients were very stoic and not feeling sorry for themselves AT ALL. The patients are lying on the equivalent of box springs with a very thin mattress that is low to the ground. The family members are on the ground. We will not show a lot of pictures of patients as we felt it was a violation of their privacy.

M and T did some cases on Friday, mostly wound care and dressing changes. The "operating rooms" we used had no lights but they did have windows which let in the light. Unfortunately, no screens on windows, so flies on everything throughout the cases. Ortho had the "good" rooms, with lights, air conditioning and no flies because no windows. The "boys", the team we were relieving and who would leave the next day, mysteriously disappeared while we were operating. We found out later they went "upstream" to bathe in the 2 foot wide "river" of water that runs through the town. M and T think this is hysterical as how can the boys know if they are really upstream and people are doing all kinds of things in this water. You get the point.

After cases, M and T went to orphanage and did dressing changes, adjusted splints, got patients moving their hands and fingers so did not become frozen, etc. The nurses are pleasantly surprised to see us and take us to see as many patients as possible. The patients are very willing to do their range of motion exercises and show the nurses constantly over the next few days that they are doing their exercises. Most of this is communicated through "sign" language"

Went to our house in the village around 7pm and are surprised to see the boys are all cleaned up (after their bath in the "clean" water). S, a plastic surgeon of Italian descent and reformed ladies man, is dressed in pressed jeans, loafers and a fine gauge knit sweater. M and T wonder where he is going and change into a fresh pair of scrubs. We decline their offer of an omelet made with local vegetables and stick to our strict diet of power bars only. The boys get diarrhea; M and T do not throughout the entire trip.

M and T decide to go to bed around 9pm. Despite the poverty, a local establishment in the village residential area, that sells beer and is a pm gathering place, has DJ equipment and begins blaring salsa music around 6pm. At very high decibels. So even when we are in the house, it sounds like you are in a major club with the speakers right in front of you. This continues throughout the night, until about 4 am. M sleeps through this, T does not. The recurrent theme of M sleeping versus T not sleeping. Since it is hot in the house, T stays on the porch (with the 4 dogs; unclear whether they have fleas or not); decides it doesn't matter as it is cooler there and listens to salsa music until 4 am when it stops. It is this first night that T heard "Yo no se manana" (and heard it in the same repetition approximately 500 times) and falls in love with this song. M has no idea what song she is talking about the next morning as she slept through the entire "concert". However, whenever T mentions "Yo no se manana" to any local, they immediately start singing it, so she knows she is onto something good. She plans on making it the ring tone on her phone.

Will pick up on Saturday morning next blog and post some photos. Our thoughts and prayers remain with the people of Haiti.