This morning, it was hard to wake up. I woke up a little later than normal. So, I finally got myself out of bed about 6:40. It started as pretty much a normal morning. I was headed to the office to print off some papers before breakfast, when I noticed commotion. Our short term medical staff was running. They were looking for our head nurse. Something about an accident. Just up the driveway of our compound. Our staff had seen it happen and 4 of our national staff were actually in the accident. They ran down the road calling for us to come help quickly.
There aren't signs in Haiti, no stoplights, except in Port Au Prince and no lines really. So, they drive super crazy. Upon hearing there was an accident, we didn't know much about it. Then, we heard that it was really bad. The nurses and our rubble team had already gone to the accident. We say a quick prayer before we decide that since the ambulance hasn't come and since it will take forever, we would probably need to take people to the hospital. I hop in one of our trucks with Ruco and drive up the driveway. We decided that i would jump out and see if they needed more trucks. when i got out, it was like something out of a movie. It wasn't just an accident, it was a bus called a Pap-A-Dap with along with another bus type truck called a Tap Tap. They had collided head on. I had never seen mass casualties. When I got there people had been thrown from the truck all the way into a ditch. on the other side. It was good timing because right when we got there the first truck had just left for the hospital.
Our other staff were there too- looking at who was already dead from those who had a chance. We got our truck full of people, we laid as many as we could in the bed and went to MSF. i was somewhat flustered and forgot for a second where MSF was, so I pulled one of our workers in the truck with us and off we went.
As we came to Dufort, the city between us and what is officially Leogane, I remembered that it's Tuesday, market day. Oh, no, I thought, how are we going to maneuver in the market? Praise the Lord that it wasn't that bad. I managed to wave a couple of tap taps out of the way and I could hear the people in the street see the people in the back of the truck, some screamed and some would just moan. One person said, "the Good Samaritan's are taking care of them".
We made it to MSF and had to unload the other trucks first. MSF called all of their staff- but I think they only had one OR, and more than one person definitely needed surgery. We finally unload everyone and come back to base. We once again checked if there was anyone else, and there wasn't. The team had already respectfully covered those in the tap tap that didn't make it with a sheet. We came back and debriefed for the rest of the morning.
Our team pulled together though. Took 8 trucks to the hospital. But it made me realise how short life is. That this morning, those 18 people that lost their lives today didn't know that it would be their last day. Did they know God? I don't know. Were they people that crossed my path that I should have showed them God? I don't know.
I don't know why it happened, but I know that God was there. The fact that it happened in front of our compound, where they could get help quickly. The fact that had the accident occurred 20 minutes later, we would not have had 75% of the vehicles that we had on hand.
Lots of thoughts.
Quite the day.
-P
No comments:
Post a Comment