Video from Haiti

The Hand

This guy came into the hospital because his finger was infected which has spread to his hand. He could not bend the finger at all. Jake had the pleasure of lancing his finger, which meant cutting a new incision where Jake could squeeze out the puss. When Jake started the young mans blood pressure was around 110/64 and then the guy passed out (we didn't have salts or oxygen) and his blood pressure dropped to 80/40. Yikes!!! The nurse started a bag of fluids on him and I helped coach his breathing because he began hyperventilating. The guy was able to walk out of the hospital but did not return the following day to have the dressing changed...I think he was scared.

The Hospital

From what Jake and I were told, the hospital has undergone a transformation in less than a year. They are working very hard to have it finished. We slept at the hospital Tues., Wed., and Thursday. We woke up each morning to livestock, specifically a rooster that would crow around 4 am and then the goats would start shortly thereafter. They were tied up right behind the hospital. At one point there were baby goats right outside the doctor's windows. There is no such thing as OSHA in Haiti. Even though they cleaned the hospital, due to the gates and open windows there is a lot of dirt on the floors. Babies don't wear diapers so when they would pee, they would pee on the floor...and usually that was not cleaned up...so it was dried pee on top of dried pee, on top of dirt on the tile floor. Thanks to a donation of wipes used in the medical field, we were able to wipe stuff down and as ridiculous as others may have thought, I wiped the waiting chairs down every evening. People would come to the hospital dressed in their "Sunday best." Coming to a hospital was a big deal and they would wait several hours to be seen...only one person complained and an interpreter told her that she is called a patient because she needs to be patient.

Tent Cities

There wasn't a lot of rubble left that we saw. And now the Haitians live in miles of tent cities, which is starting to cause some problems...they are living in very close quarters and even though it may seem weird to us, I think they would be happier in their huts built out of sticks, and corn reeds, or simple concrete. We had wanted to go to Port-Au-Prince but Pastor J, who is in charge of the church, orphanage, and hospital, told us that it was not safe for us to go to Port-Au-Prince because there were riots and us being white would be dangerous.

The One Love

The old half of the One Love survived in the earthquake; however the new half collapsed because it was built quickly in a year. As one friend said...these images are the images they don't advertise for the hotel.

Driving...

Arriving

Here are pictures from when we were driving from the airport to the hotel. There is a lot of trash in the city. We rode in what is called a tap-tap. It's basically a flat bed truck with metal walls and an arched ceiling. The floor is metal and is wearing through and one can see the ground in a few areas. Once we got on the dirt road that led to Thamazeau, people would ride on top of the tap-tap.