Anyway we were now behind schedule to get back to the Belgian’s hospital to run some patients from yesterday back to their camp in the Carrefour section. Further Scott's family was not doing well so we all stopped and Scott just prayed so powerfully for God to direct and ordain our efforts and for angelic protection and healing for his family.
Once at the Belgian hospital we split into two teams. Scott, Dimas and a new driver took the jeep to run to a hospital for supplies the Belgians needed (diapers, Enfamil etc) and then to try and find the Child Hope Orphanage. Al and I took the van and our interpreter and driver to run back to Carrefour which we anticipated would be a simple run, drop the patients back, provide some meds to a few people we had seen previously and then head on. Scott and D took care of the hospital run and they actually found the Child Hope Orphanage. This is the one which has been on the news because 20 armed men attacked it several days ago. Scott actually knows really close friends of the family who started and still run the place. Anyway the people are just full on Christians who moved to Haiti and started an orphanage and school because their daughter who was eight at the time had a dream where God called HER to do so
Al and I got to the camp and instead of 15 mins in and out we spent 4 hours treating person after person after person, some with scrapes and so forth but a couple dozen with significant infections. Mixed in where several people we agreed had to be taken back to the Belgians, a lady with a fractured foot, an elderly lady with several broken ribs, a man vomiting blood, and so forth. After literally four hours of this, a van from International Medical Corps rolled in with an actual doctor and nurse (as opposed to us). He took the fractures and others but the man with issue of vomiting blood had to go with us to Belgians. This was a crazy draining experience just due to 4 hour nonstop sweaty hot assembly line of it.
At the Belgian camp, the man was diagnosed as a severe bleeding ulcer so they went to work on him. We spent an hour plus at the Belgian camp as they were cool enough to replenish our supplies so we wouldn't have to go all the way home.
Al and I decided to go back to the camp where we found Louis Charles, the man with the open skill fracture, to see if more people were there or bandages needed changing, etc. Also when we had been there we didn't have any antibiotics.
When we got there the camp was gone, dispersed. Unsure what to do we turned up the road to try and find where to go. God directed us to stop at a camp just up the road in Delmas where no one had been. The camp was run by a big strong woman who literally was IT. They had 125 families surviving in a space way too small to comprehend that number.
So Al and I jumped into more mobile triage with usual infections cuts etc but we started running into people with serious issues. As we saw them we had Carla the interpreter tell them to get a parent and wait because they had to go to the hospital. This became a little crazy as we found so many that had go. Including Al and I, our driver and interpreter plus injured and parents we had 18 people in a 9 person van. Here are just a couple:
- A 5 year old boy that Al treated who had a foot threatening rent across his foot and ankle, (the Belgians put him under and were able to save his foot)
- A little girl with a 9 day persistent fever (turns out malaria, again the Belgians...)
- A 14 year old who I believe has a neuro-trauma from a boulder landing on her. She couldn't see in one eye and couldn't reliably follow my finger with the "good eye". (She had more serious issues so we took her to a hospital near the Belgians run by the Cubans and Spanish don't know her outcome but she was in grave shape)
- An absolutely beautiful 4 year old boy who couldn't move his left arm because his shoulder hurt. When he moved it his shoulder reminded me of how mine used to look when I would dislocate it. I asked how he hurt it and his father explained the little boy had been buried in the rubble after the quake and he (dad) and some others had dug the boy out! He was so beautiful I just couldn't picture him buried under his house. ( The Belgians put him under and fixed up a severely dislocated shoulder. What a gift of life that boy Louis Kenzie is.).
Well we got back to the center way after dark to another gift of a shower and a meal of black rice, beans and plantains. Tomorrow Dimas and I leave at six to drive to Santo Domingo to pick up team two comprised of two doctors, a missionary from Infinity and a photographer who is going to shoot footage for us. Off to bed on the rooftop under a just startling big sky.
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