Melanie Thomas put this show together. She has some tremendous photos that I just saw for the first time today. Mel was a wonderful member of the Medical Teams International team that was on the ground in the early response to the earthquake. She spent a bunch of time at King's Hospital sorting out the supplies and organizing the supplies that came in. She is one of the type of people that doesn't scramble to get in the limelight. She just gets busy doing the tasks at hand. Wow, did she work hard! She was such a blessing to the team! The show that she put together will move you and bless you. After watching it, please consider the questions that I've posted for you by clicking "read more" below.

Here are a couple of questions to get the discussion going:

Haiti continues to occupy a tremendous amount of my energy, both consciously  and subconsciously. In fact, I think that most everyone that was on our early team is still processing this disaster. I'm still having some dreams and wrestling with what I saw. I'm processing it on a couple of different levels. First of all I'm still very concerned about the long term health issues in Haiti. They have a long, long way to go. I am confident, however, that progress is being made. I'm encouraged by some of the plans that I've been told about and I don't feel that it is a hopeless situation. It is just going to be a long term struggle.

The other way that I'm processing the experience involves us. I can't help but ask myself, "What if it happened here?" That is good discussion for us to have. We need to be ready both from a physical, structural and procedural basis. We also need to be ready from a psychological basis. That is one thing that very few people talk about and I will address it in a new blog series entitled "How to Become Unshakable in Tough Times".

For now, let's take a look at what you can do from a physical, structural and procedural perspective. There is the check list of things that we can do to be ready from that standpoint. Here is a list that I lifted from the FEMA earthquake website:

Now that I've been back for a couple of days I thought I would share my heart with you. Perhaps you would like to know why I went.

It has occurred to me since my return from Haiti just over a week ago that there are two ways to look at major disasters. One can look at it from the perspective of Google Earth (the satellite view) or from the perspective of Facebook (relationships and networks with people) .

(Photo: Pastor Devariste's wife in route to Miami aboard a donated Learjet about 2 weeks ago.)

I was able to speak to Pastor Devariste in Miami and he told me that his wife is doing well. Not only is she going to live but it looks like she is going to be able to keep her vary own foot as well. Please keep her in your prayers. She is having surgery this Wednesday.

We are still seeing a lot of wounded people that have not yet been evaluated by anyone. Unbelievable!

Today was an interesting one. Once again, for me it was a day of networking and coordination. We received word today that the anesthesia machine that we had been anxiously waiting for was finally in Haiti. Now, the challenge was going to be getting it from the airport to the hospital. The roads are dirt moguls and potholes. They could easily destroy sensitive medical equipment. It turns out that the machine was delivered to Haiti by the US Air Force. The folks at Hope Force worked it out. After even more behind the scenes work by them, they were able to arrange to have it delivered to the hospital by helicopter! The Canadian Air Force agreed to deliver it by sling.

It was awesome to see it come in and I couldn't resist being up on the roof to get some great pictures. Well, that was a big mistake. The roof used to be covered with concrete dust and gravel. Now, all of that is under my eyelids, in my ears and down my pants. But, we have our anesthesia machine! Nice! The US Army 82nd Airborne were with us and they coordinated with the helicopter to land in a nearby field while they provided security. That way the Canadians were able to retrieve their harness and hook and drop off two of the guys from Hope Force to help uncrate the machine and transport it down stairs to the OR. Great teamwork!

(The above video was originally streamed live from my iPhone!)

I'm overwhelmed by the amount of injuries and the severity of the injuries! Everywhere that I look there are buildings that have been destroyed! Even banks! BANKS!? Good grief! Taking pictures of the destroyed buildings seems pointless after a while. They all just look like pictures of piles of rocks. I don't allow my brain to wonder what it could be like to be trapped alive. However, I must admit, my mind keeps burping the concept up since the aftershock scared the heck out of me. Last night I woke up about five times thinking we were having another earthquake only to realize, several heartbeats later, that it was only a US Air Force C130 transport plane taking off. Our guest house is somewhere just beyond the end of the runway. Those things are loud!

Today was a blur. The one thing that I do remember for sure is that I fell in love. No doubt. How can you not fall in love with a 12 year old 7th grader with huge brown eyes, a cute little sundress and a smile that could stop time itself?   When "The Thing" happened she was so frightened that she ran out into the street and was hit by a car. She was pinned under the car and sustained third degree burns on nearly the entire right side of her face and her right shoulder from the muffler! Her neighbors pulled her out and she ran in to help her mother get out of the house!

When I met her she was a patient at the UN - U of Miami hospital. I fell in love with her instantly. No way was I going I let her stay there.  I told them that we would be happy to take her to our hospital (where we could love on her and give her some personalized care). We loaded her and her mother into our car and took her to King's for some outstanding care (not that I'm biased but I really like our team). 

Jay Leno said calling it an aftershock is like calling the second twin an "after-birth". He is right. No matter how you look at it, we had an earthquake early this morning that was a 6.1.  It was scary! But there is more to the story. You see, at home I usually sleep naked (TMI?) but here I have been wearing shorts. Well, last night I was just too dang hot so I decided to sleep in my bun-huggers. When you were a kid did you ever have the same recurrent nightmare that I did—the one where you went to school and forgot to put your clothes on? When the quake hit, I was sleeping and the room started to heave and rock. There was an amazing rumbling roar that was a very deep sound/sensation. Bill jumped up and yelled "Earthquake! We gotta get out of here now!!!" I jumped up and asked myself a quick question, "Dan Diamond, would you rather look for your shorts and possibly die or experience a compound fracture or would you rather run outside in your underwear?"   I went for the underwear and ran outside. When I got outside I was the only one wearing briefs. Then a little girl passed out and I ran over to check on her. Now Nick, our video guy that is documenting the trip (eat your heart out Brittany Spears, he didn't film me in my underwear)--Nick said that the girl passed out BECAUSE she saw me in my underwear. Needless to say my staff and the Haitians at my new home spent the rest of the day laughing at me.

The tremor was really scary. When we arrived at the hospital we found our night crew outside with ALL of the patients. They evacuated all of them. They were amazing! They had them all organized with their names, medications, and their diagnosis.  They even drew out a grid of the hospital grounds and mapped their location so they could be located. Fabulous! I am working with first rate people.

Today it hit me. 

 Bill and I were up very early to take the pastor and his wife to the airport. It was very emotional putting her in a exclusive Leer Jet. Her husband was overwhelmed with joy. His smile went all the way around his head. Then to top it all, the pilot asked him if he wanted to go as well!!! He was blown away. He hugged me like I just saved his life. Hmmm. I can still see his smile. It's only a 90 min flight in a Leer Jet. It was a happy ending to an amazing story. She was picked up at the airport by an ambulance and, as you read this, she is already in the hospital getting the care she needs. 

At the hospital today I was able to define my departments and assign department heads. The departments are Triage, Intake, OR, Inpatient Floor B, Inpatient Floor C, Inpatient Floor D, Supply/Pharmacy, Operations, and Security. I have an outstanding team, they have rallied and made tremendous progress today. The OR looked like a real OR. We have had, however, significant troubles with the generator. It is too small and frequently the breaker trips. When that happens, the autoclave that sterilizes the instruments shuts down and has to be restarted. It has caused some frustrating delays. We ended up shutting down all of the breakers to the entire hospital except for the autoclave. We have big-boy huge generator on a palate but we don't have the cable to hook it up. There is only one forklift in town that can move it to the best location and it is at the US Embassy. All the UN lifts are being used to off load the supplies at the airport so we might be able to pull that one off soon. 

I spent a good amount of time scrambling trying to find supplies and have made some great finds at the UN. We also agreed to take up to 15 post-op patients from their tent if they would send us their cots. I've been trying to find some cots today with a goal of about 250 cots. Don't tell the staff, they aren't quite ready for that many patients yet but we are growing rapidly. We also started using a regular charting system today. All patients are formally checked in and have a chart. Orders, notes and meds are all recorded. We are nearly JCAH certified! We even have radios so the Dept Heads can communicate. 

I slept in the dirt and gravel outside of the UN hospital after I relieved the doctors last night. I was awake off and on throughout the night for the few hours that I laid down but I was suddenly shaken awake at about 3:42 am to a tremor. It was a bit startling but I just went back to sleep. I talked to one of the guys that has been working with us and he said that he ran outside when the tremor happened because everyone is still very twitchy about the stability of the buildings that are still standing. 

I was up by 5:45 and fixed an MRE for breakfast. Bill picked me up and took me back to our guesthouse at about 6:30. 

We had a quick meeting with some other folks after breakfast and then Bill and I went to the UN where we received the horrible news that the Pastor's wife was too sick to be treated at the Israeli field hospital. She was likely going to die. 

I wasn't about to give up so I began to put together other plans. We heard on the radio that the nicest hospital in town was now open and ready for the sickest of the sick. I suggested that we not transport he until we saw it for ourselves. I was not prepared for the devastation that we saw along the way. It was not possible, the most horrific scene that I have ever seen, there is nothing to compare it to. People roam the streets afraid to go inside build after building is collapsed. I know full well that there are people in there and some may even be alive but there isn't anything we can do. There are not many heavy machines that I have seen.

When we got to the hospital we found a warm and friendly environment that well organized. However, they were operating in a makeshift OR located in their ER. They were lacking supplies and equipment.  Bill and I both commented on the sense that we had of God's presence in that place. Unfortunately, they couldn't help us.

We then went to the Israeli field hospital compound because I really hate taking "no" for an answer when it comes to people that I care about. We met the comandor and has was gracious enough to give us one of his physicians to go to see the paster's wife at the UN. Unfortunately, he was required to take a security guard with him. There was difficulty finding  an available guard so we waited for about 45 Min for nothing and planned to come back later.

I then went back to our hospital (King's)  and met with the team. They had a brutal day! There were so many patients that the were being pulled in every direction (literally) by families and patients. We did not have enough translators so communication was frustrating. Anne, one of our very experienced nurses, found a ton of surgical instruments today! This was tremendously great news! The teams coming tomorrow will be delighted.  We are going to work hard tomorrow to get the operating rooms up and running. It is starting to feel like a "long term goal" but we have been here just a bit more than 24 hours and we have accomplished a tremendous amount. As a team we have seen many patients.  There was one little girl that was only about 2 or 3 years old with a compound fracture (where the bone comes out through the skin) in her upper arm. It was amazing how much she was tugging at my heart.  We also saw a 9 year old with cerebral palsy that had a major arm fracture. There were many people in the yard on tables, boards, cardboard, chairs as well as on thegrass. So many, many foul smelling infections! Many people will require surgery. One guy can't feel or move his right leg. I suspect that he has a fracture of his low back. There are so many crush injuries including hands, feet and chests.

So after seeing patients I went back to the Israeli compound and grabbed the doctor to come and check out the mademoiselle. (French speaking country).  His guard was available with his Uzi machine-gun. He went to the UN and the most amazing thing happened: it turns out she doesn't have a pelvic fracture and there is a chance she could live! She did, however, have a compound fracture of the lower leg. This will mean that she will most likely need to have her lower leg amputated. Our orthopedic surgeon will see her in the AM. I can sleep knowing that most likely she will wake up in the morning. We were given the incorrect diagnosis. Go figure.  

Exhausted and going to bed. Tomorrow I will be crazy busy!! There is so much to get done!! Whoa!

Thanks so much for all of your comments, encouragement and prayers.

Onward,
Dan