Day 4 - Aeropuerto Tent City

December 29, 2010
Day 4 - Aeropuerto Tent City

The airport

Today was one of the most intense days of my life. I have never been more scared and relieved all while having an indescribable adrenaline rush. We traveled through the busy streets of Port Au Prince to the largest tent city in the heart of the city. Aeropuerto is about two miles from the airport and is a place that is absolutely incredible. I have never seen some many tents or people in my life. Everywhere you looked is just surrounded by tent after tent and line after line of clothes. There are so many tents in this part of the city that people are setting up camp in the MEDIAN OF THE HIGHWAY.

As we pulled into the city, children and adults just started pouring out of everywhere. Everywhere I looked people were coming out of tents, between tents, behind tents, through the streets to our tap-tap. They surrounded the tap-tap so much, we have to stop moving because we were afraid that we would accidentally run someone over. Our interpreters got off of the tap-tap and explained to everyone they had to move out of the way so we could get to the tents to set up the clinic for the day.

Some of the kids running to greet the tap-tap

As people began to move away from the tap-tap they formed a massive line following us onto a huge cement slab next to a irrigation ditch that ran through the city. The ditch was surrounded by people doing their laundry, gathering drinking water, bathing and going to the bathroom! It was amazing to see all of these thousands of people.

We were supplied with two tents. One for the clinic and the other for donations. We set up our stations and got to work. This day was extremely hot and there were so many people that we needed to see. We had to position four grown men at the door of the tent to keep the crowd from just running in and causing complete chaos.

The tents we worked in

As the day progressed, we saw more and more severe cases of dehydration, chicken pox and a lot of malnutrition. Then, Matt (an EMT from Washington) came to me with a nine month old baby girl in his arms. She was covered in chicken pox and was breathing very erratically. We called in the Red Cross Emergency Response Team and Matt and I climbed into the back of the jeep instructing the driver to take us to University of Miami Hospital which was only a mile away from the tent city. As we were on our way through the crowded streets, the baby stopped breathing. It was all Matt and I could to do stay as calm as possible as we were trying to get her to breathe again all while trying to communicate to our driver that we needed to get to the hospital NOW. The driver did not speak any English so Matt was trying his best to make up some French that meant STEP ON IT BUDDY. When we finally made it through the crowd to the gate of the hospital, the guards wouldn't let us through. Matt and I scrambled out of the van with the baby in tow and ran to the gate trying to show the guard the unresponsive baby. He finally let us through and we ran into the already over flowing emergency room. The doctors listened to Matt as he gave them the rundown and literally moved a patient from the bed to a chair so we could lay the baby on the table. All I could do was pray. Pray that they could get her to breathe again, pray that she would be okay, pray that everything would work out. All of a sudden, she let out a wail and everyone in the room breathed a HUGE sigh of relief. How amazing and wonderful was the cry of that baby. Definitely an experience that I will NEVER forget.

Our day didn't stop there though. We loaded right back into the jeep and headed back to Aeropuerto to continue with the clinic. When we got back, Matt went with Tim (another EMT) back to University of Miami hospital with a teenage girl who was so dehydrated she started convulsing in the tent. All while this was happening, the crowd was becoming more and more tense because a man in the tent city was being arrested. We gathered as a group and discussed whether we should leave or not and decided collectively that we had a job a mission to do and wouldn't leave until we ran out of medication or patients.

As the day began winding down, I was working with Mike, a physicians assistant from Pittsburgh. He taught me a lot about de-worming medications and also about wound care. Just in time too because a teenage boy was brought to the tent with a severed finger and was bleeding profusely. Mike, being the jokster he is said calmly to me, "You might want to apply pressure to that wound." Gee thanks Mike. As I began to apply pressure to his hand and began to clean the wound, the boy told the interpreter that he worked at the gate of the city and got his hand caught in the gate as they were closing it. He was in some serious pain, poor guy. We gave him Vicodin and began to dress his wounds as best as we could and then sent him to the hospital as well. We saw over 200 patients today and didn't lose a single one. :)

Dr. Mike

After we began to pack up the clinic, us health care workers got to go into the donation tent and help hand out peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and Pedialyte to the children. One by one the kids got to come through the tent and received a half of a PBJ and a cup of Pedialyte. One little boy that came through was about two years old and was trying to eat his sandwich through the wrapper. Oh man was he precious, I helped him and he just kept grinning through the whole thing. (I might have snuck him an extra half because he was just so adorable!)

My little buddy :)

Finally we left the tent city and took the long way back to our compound so that we were able to see a lot of the city. The destruction is still amazing and unbelievable, but no matter the destruction these people just keep pushing along through their lives.

Today was absolutely exhausting but we decided that after all of that drama and adrenaline we needed to go out and let off a little steam. We went to a Haitian disco party. It was a lot of fun. It is just a big black room and everyone just dances. You can't see anything! It was definitely an experience and we drug ourselves home at about 2 am. When we got home, me, Anita, and Kelci had a little pow wow in the bathroom that involved a ton of laughter and more contemplation of killing the rooster because he began to crow AGAIN!

I learned so much today and am still absolutely loving this county, it's culture but most of all it's beautiful people.

Another beautiful Haitian sunset