We left Port-au-Prince on Friday morning.
On the runway, as we were about to board the 5 passenger plane, a missionary asked us if we knew any orthopedic surgeons. He was escorting a 9 year old girl (with her mother ) who had been found under the rubble after 3 days. Her father and two siblings were killed by the quake. Also, she had open fractures in both feet and both were partially amputated.
So we took her along with us to Pinion. The first day we derided her feet in attempts to save her feet but we knew we would need to eventually amputate possibly BKA.
Children with amputation lead tough lives in Haiti and we really trying to save her limb. But today we had to perform a transmetatarsal amputation of her left foot and excision of bone on her right. Thankfully, a plastic surgeon arrived today and stated he thinks he could perform skin grafts on both feet so we decided not to perform bilateral below the knee amputations. Also our American colleagues have told us that they can get her prosthetics in the future.
She is a beautiful loving child that has grabbed the hearts of everyone in the hospital. God Bless her. I will NEVER forget her. Never
Unfortunately, she is one of MANY. The emergency workers have ended their search and rescue missions.
What remains is a nation in great need of long term help. God Bless my beloved Haiti.
No pictures. Too graphic.
Jean-Max
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
One Comment
Hi Jean-Max, I was on the MFI flight with your team out of Pignon last Thursday (I was traveling by myself, teaching ecology). I lost my laptop at the customs office in Ft. Pierce, and was hoping one of your team picked it up thinking it belonged to another doctor. If you know about this, could you email me? naturesphoto@hotmail.com I posted a picture inside the DC3 on my blog: http://zwazoyo.blogspot.com/