Nurse Aids Patients in Haiti
(February 14, 2010) |
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HURLBURT FIELD, Fla., Feb. 11, 2010 – The massive earthquake
that struck Haiti Jan. 12 changed the lives of countless
people forever.
Perhaps no one group has been more exposed to the bare
humanity of the disaster than the medics who were on the
forefront, providing lifesaving care to those who survived
the magnitude 7 earthquake.
Air Force Maj. Jon Earles, one of four critical care nurses
with the 1st Special Operations Support Squadron here,
treated more than 100 patients during his time in Haiti Jan.
21 through 24, working with other medical technicians at the
U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
Before the five-hour flight to Haiti, Earles said he had an
idea of what the quake-stricken island would look like.
"I saw the devastation in pictures and on TV, but it was
pretty surreal to see it when we were flying over or driving
through a city," he said. "There would be one building still
standing and 10 in a row were completely leveled. It
reminded me of when I saw a building get imploded in Las
Vegas. They were that flat."
The quake's aftermath also took its toll on the country's
hospitals, with few left to accommodate the large number of
survivors needing treatment.
"There were thousands of people just outside the embassy,"
he said. "The medical facilities still standing were
overwhelmed."
Despite his team's willingness to help, they faced
limitations from the quantity of resources to meet the needs
of so many patients.
"We were not built for that type of sustained mission, to
see patient after patient," Earles said. "The supply chain
from the [1st Special Operations Wing] was what kept us
going, otherwise we would have run out of supplies the first
day."
Using the embassy as their central site to treat patients,
military medical teams set up the building's conference room
for surgeries. Part of Earles' critical care nurse training
taught him to perform surgery in any area of opportunity, no
matter the conditions. Teams had to use lounge chairs for
operations instead of the preferred hospital operating
table.
Prior to the arrival of medical teams, survivors were
treated with whatever crude resources were available.
"I heard a lot about the Civil War-type medical conditions,
with people using hacksaws and no anesthetics for
amputations," Earles said.
While his medical teams traveled with all the necessary
narcotics and anesthetics to medicate all their patients
appropriately, Earles had to treat patients who had already
received care from people not surgically trained.
"Some of the people who performed amputations weren't
surgeons, and that's something you don't want to see," he
said. "We saw some people with bones sticking out with no
dressing on it."
Many victims who had amputations and spinal cord injuries
will require more help for the rest of their lives, Earles
said.
One of the cases that stood out, he recalled, was a woman
pulled out of a wrecked hotel who had both of her arms
amputated.
"She was a beautiful, young woman and she was left with no
arms," he said. "I kept thinking, 'How is she going to feed
herself? Who is she going to have to take care of her?' You
wonder what's going to happen to her. We have all these
social services in the States where people undergo
amputations and later get prosthetics. She's not going to
have any of that."
Earles said the devastation made him think of all the things
he had back home.
"They're without drinkable water and have little to eat," he
said. "It's incredible what hardships the people there are
going through."
Earles returned here Jan. 24, but was awaiting the call to
go back to Haiti and help others.
"No matter how much you do, you wish you could do more
because there's such a great need there," he said. "I was
only there a short time, but I'm glad we were able to help
the people we did." |
By Airman 1st Class Joe McFadden
1st Special Operations Wing public affairs
Special to
American Forces Press Service
Copyright 2010 |
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