By Joe Olenick<br><a href="mailto:olenickj@gnnewspaper.com">E-mail Joe</a>
It was originally a medical missions trip to the Dominican Republic planned months in advance. But for some locals, it ended up being a trip to Haiti with very little time to plan.
A massive 7.0 magnitude earthquake hit the small country on Jan. 12, followed by a 6.0 aftershock. Officials are estimating the death toll will eventually reach 200,000 and over a million homeless.
To aid the relief effort, help has come from all over the world. And that includes Niagara County, where some residents have gone down to Haiti to volunteer their time.
David Parsons of Cambria was among a group of volunteers sent to assist victims in Haiti from the Getzville-based Chapel at CrossPoint. The group went as a part of Score International Ministries’ missions trip to the Dominican Republic, the nation that shares a border with Haiti. The group arrived a few days after the earthquake and found out late at night Jan. 19 they would be going to Haiti.
Parsons said the Dominican Republic trip was one that had been planned for months. But the trip to Haiti was planned a little more quickly, giving the volunteers little time to prepare.
“They told us to pack up at 10 p.m., and by 2 a.m. we were gone,” Parsons said.
Also in Parsons’ group were fellow residents Mary Kesterson and David Ireland. The group of about 10 volunteers journeyed to Good Samaritan Hospital in the Haitian city of Jimani, a city on the Dominican-Haitian border. The hospital is about a quarter of a mile away from an orphanage.
The original plan called for Parsons’ group to help provide support to those who were directly helping the earthquake victims. As they got to Jimani, the plans changed a little.
“That just didn’t happen,” Parsons said.
Good Samaritan had five operating rooms and rows of patients lining up around the building. The volunteers met up with others from around the world to help treat the victims. Parsons worked with patients 17 hours a day for two days straight. Some of the victims had gone days without seeing anybody who could help. While Parsons was there, the volunteers in the hospital saw about 1,000 patients, lost only two and even had a birth. Different news agencies stopped by the hospital, including Al Jazeera, the widely known Arabic language news network.
Ireland said a big problem facing the hospital wasn’t supplies, but rather organizing them. There was no coordination, Ireland said, but that would be settled once the volunteers arrived. Still they had to get by with what they had, including figuring out how to diagnose a fracture without an X-ray machine. Parsons said volunteers would have to feel around the limb to determine where a fracture or break may have happened.
And there were certain patients who stood out. Parsons said many patients didn’t even have clothes, one boy in particular didn’t even have parents, just a book he always carried around with him.
Parsons noted that he isn’t a doctor, but a physician’s assistant; neither are Ireland or Kesterson physicians, but it didn’t matter. Everyone helped out wherever they could —for example, doctors were assisting students.
“People left their credentials at the door,” said Ireland, who is a massage therapist.
“It was an amazing experience,” added Kesterson, who is a biology student at Fredonia.
But it wasn’t just the volunteers helping the patients. Some of the patients who were placed in the chapel of the hospital would sing, an uplifting sound to the volunteers.
And after all of that, Parsons, Kesterson and Ireland said they want to go back to Haiti. Parsons is in the process of trying to secure donations, as well as some medical supplies needed in Haiti. Those supplies include medicine, as well as a cast saw, used for removing casts from an arm or leg that was broken. Ireland said he’s got a small team together and ready to go.
“It would be great to go back,” Ireland said.
Contact reporter Joe Olenick at 439-9222, ext. 6241.
