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It has been two months since I have been able to put words to page although this is not for lack of content or consideration but rather the inability to put thoughts into meaning. In that time period we have left Haiti, seen old friends in Jamaica, and crossed the remainder of the Caribbean Sea to Panama. All amazing accomplishments that should be noted, written about, and reflected upon- yet every time I open the computer to a blank white WORD page I sit paralyzed. It’s as if all of the experiences and work bottle neck themselves in my head and leave a connection with my hands useless.
I thought this time that leaving Haiti would be easy, knowing that we would return again, to have seen the faces that I love and know that they are well, and yet in reality it was much harder than the last. To see a little boy that I love with all of my heart playing by the tree where I last left him was a joy but leaving him once again at the same tree eats at me… having him not there the next time we return will break me, and yet when I sit back and think about, having him still there may be just as bad. The never ending tail chasing ‘whats worse’ game that plays in my mind. It seems at times to me that my heart will never win when it comes to my time in Haiti—I will always be pulled back and tormented away. The sights, sounds, and deaths get no easier the second time around- they still work their way in, nuzzle themselves into my soul, and trouble my moonlit nights on the water. As we left Haiti I sat on our back deck for as long as the light would allow my eyes sight with my heart being crushed and simultaneously elated that we were pulling away from the shores not knowing if the tears I was shedding were for her, for me, or for those I was once again leaving behind.The transit that lay ahead of me turned into 5 of the most memorable days of my life- flat calm and beautiful the seas opened themselves and the life that dwells deep within its blue waters to us. We spent the days spotting whales, dolphins, endless fish, whale sharks, and sharks with an elation that only wildlife can bring. I felt my heart being drawn into the
dark blue that lay beneath our keel, the salt water starting to become part of my blood, her vastness a part of my soul, and perhaps on this transit I truly became a sailor. As I walk down the docks now I feel her calling to me- beckoning me into her wildness and away from the safety of solid land. To trade stability for freedom and schedule for adventure- to stand on our bow with salt laced air in my face and dolphins underneath my feet. To undo our lines and sail into the never ending splendor that is the open ocean.I had dreamed of Panama from the start of my involvement in this project – it always seemed so wild and distant to me. It has not failed to disappoint either- the people, the
jungles, and the islands have opened themselves and embraced our project like no place we have been before. The unending kindness of the people here leaves me speechless as it seems that there is nothing that they won’t do to make ‘us’ happen. Free Dockage from the Bocas Marina and Yacht Club, amazing Fashion Show/Fundraisers from the Calypso Cantina, Wednesday night girls night with some amazing women. The community has thrown its heart open to us and is literally making our project here possible. So much of what I have constantly had to worry about has been lifted from my shoulders allowing me to immerse myself in our clinics. I am humbled, once again, by the generosity of others.I find myself loving my life – on the precipice of my 30th year I am thankful beyond all reason for the life I get to lead. I wake up every morning, usually no one is up yet, and I drink my coffee overlooking one of the most stunning bays in the Caribbean. I awake my crew and head off to a distant shore, often feeling like I have stepped back hundreds of
years in time, and spend my days making peoples’ lives better, making their pain stop, quieting the worried minds of mothers and the crying of babies. And all too often people tell me that it’s so amazing what we do—my only reply is, nope, it’s amazing what I get to do. I am surrounded by suffering and pain and beauty and wonder. My heart is broken and lifted twisted and torn and I would change none of it. My cup runeth over. I am haunted and changed and the luckiest girl I know. -
My little sister Sky...at the helm...she is so awesome
Bocas del Toro, Panama
As always, leaving Haiti was difficult. There is always a sense of leaving things unfinished, no matter how many patients you see or projects you complete. I always tell people, we are not going to go help Haiti. That is beyond our power…but we went to help HAITIANS, and helped many. Leaving is hard…but I comfort myself when I remember that our anchor will drop in Haiti again.
Moonrise 200 miles off Nicaragua
We had an amazingly calm and uneventful passage from Haiti to Jamaica (our 4th time crossing the Windward Passage…it was tolerable this time, I’ll give it that). We ghosted through mirror glass seas 200 miles off the coast on our way south to Panama, a full moon reflected among the stars on a sea so smooth that the horizon was not visible. We caught some fish, slept well, had a whale shark partially breach in our wake, saw pilot whales and dolphins…Jamaica to Bocas del Toro has been by far our easiest and most pleasant transit.
this looks like a scene from an italian opera
Our arrival in Bocas was marked by the immediate generosity of the expat and local community here. Dylan and Darien on S/V Jackaroo, the owners of the Calypso Cantina at Bocas Marina, helped arrange Bocas Marina hosting us while we are here, welcomed us with a fire dance at the cantina, and have just organized a big fashion show fundraiser to support our time here (blog with THAT story coming soon!). Chuck, Courtney and Rosemary and Dana from Bocas Marina have gone way out of their way to support our mission here, and everyone in the local community has reached out to help us here.
This place is almost purpose-designed for a team like ours: a large population spread out over a large area, mostly accessible only by boat, with little or no access to health care…nearest surgery is an hour and half by fast boat ride…a mammogram is 2 hours away…a very, very, very underserved population (lots of indigenous people who have had a long history of poor interactions with foreigners).
We immediately became involved in several initial activities:
Mobile Clinics:
Shark Hole community (mobile clinic with the Mayor)
By car (thank you Rosemary!) and by panga (thank you Alcaldia!) we have so far been running mobile clinics for the communities in San Cristobal, Drago, and Shark Hole and have returns for follow up and visits to other communities on the calendar for the next few weeks, with help from expats in the area, peace corps volunteers in the communities, and with the help of the local mayor (the Alcaldia).
- Sarah doing health checks in Drago (about 1 in 6 had something needing attention)
Dr. Joe, previously the town’s only doctor before entering politics, visits the outlying communities once a week with a government team (health inspector, education directors, building inspector, etc) and we go with to do a mobile clinic. We have some bigger multi-day mobile clinics coming up; on one we will be carrying five 750 gallon water tanks to a remote series of coastal communities for Operation Safe Water.
Nursing Home (The Asilo):
Felicity and I doing ulcer care in Asilo
3 staff (cook, cleaner, nurse) on each day shift to cook for, feed, clean, wash, change, dress, and otherwise care for 25 long-term care residents who are wards of the state, most with few (usually none) family members and no means of support. The fact that the floors are clean and the patients are fed is a huge achievement, but otherwise it is heart-wrenching. There is a 3-inch concrete sill in each door…to go outside, I watched an old man with no legs roll himself up to the sill, climb down out of his wheelchair, lift the chair over the sill, lift himself over the sill, and then climb back into his chair.
The first truckload of garbage taken from the Asilo
Piles of rusting metal and trash and junk fill the backyard, and vultures walk amongst the patients in the fall-hazard garden. There are no handrails anywhere, including the bathrooms. A doctor has not come from the hospital to look at the patients for months, and they have no meds at all. And the patients have no charts at all. SO…we created charts, did full histories and physicals on everyone. Now we can write and document progress notes and exams and studies.
Please come to the Asilo and help us take the residents for walks!
The mayor sent a municipal truck and we filled it three times with garbage and junk, CJ has gathered many cuttings and plants given by other members of the community and begun systematically landscaping the demilitarized zone that was the backyard, we’ve been doing wound care, skin care, walking and exercising the patients, repairing leaking water pipes, changing inappropriate shower heads, providing eyeglasses, and generally trying to improve conditions everywhere we turn. If you are in Bocas and reading this, come by and give us a hand!
Bocas Emergency Network:
Grit from a sanding disc injury lodged deep in abcess...
We arrived here to find that the BEN (Bocas Emergency Network) was already in existence here—a network of about 50 expats scattered across the area who remain in radio contact to alert and assist each other in emergencies. The name seemed a fit made by fate, so our call sign in the BEN is ‘BEN911’. We have taken a couple of calls through the network, but fortunately none which were serious enough to necessitate an emergency callout. We are working on getting our own panga and programming known safe routes through this maze of mangroves to all the different BEN member homes (which are all located near local villages) into our GPS so with a searchlight we can make high-speed response to emergencies or do fast transit to Changinola (closest place with surgical facilities)
One of the cruisers here helping us landscape at Asilo
So far here we have had medical students from Israel and Saskatchewan, Canada, an RN and her cameraman fiancé from Australia, pre-medical and nursing students from Duke and Berkeley, an Optometrist living locally who is going to come do monthly prescription clinics (we have glasses), a nurse from Florida who just moved here with her husband, and we have a tropical medicine specialist coming from the UK, a nurse from California, and other volunteers coming throughout the summer, and some of our old volunteers returning too (awesome). It is amazing watching them go through the experience. It changes us daily, and it is fascinating and rewarding to watch people rise to challenges, encounter people and situations which push them past their boundaries, and seek out and develop opportunities to help.
Felicity helping Asilo residents pick out new glasses
I read about a playwright/director, terrified after an awful dress rehearsal before the debut of his one chance at success, who fell asleep and dreamed that he was scaling a immense mountain peak…vertical walls…no ropes…he, who had always been scared of heights, in the dream is climbing like a man born to the rock and the sky, and as he nears the summit, he loses his grip and slips, hanging just below the summit by his fingertips.
- Eve and Sarah changing decubitous ulcer dressings in Asilo
A man on the summit looks down and asks him if he is afraid of failing…and says ‘it is sometimes a mistake to climb; it is always a mistake never even to make the attempt. Sometimes, when you climb, you succeed, and sometimes, yes, you fall…but there is a third option…’ And then the playwright falls. And as he is falling, he realizes what the third option is: sometimes, when you fall, you find out you can fly.
This I believe.
Dylan orbited by flames
And in this community there are already many hands under us. What do we have in the works? Of course we want to bring in a container from Direct Relief International with equipment and material for the hospital and dispensarias here; we will soon be doing training with the firemen (who do water rescue here also) in Bocas, working with Operation Safe Water to deliver more tanks and equipment for water projects, doing consults using the mayor’s old consulting room, putting a raised vegetable garden in at the asilo, getting some specialists down here, doing more multiday mobile clinics and continuing to return for follow-up…who knows what else? I feel like this is a community in which we can accomplish a lot…it’s an exciting feeling after 1 month; wondering what we will have done here in another few months…
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All pictures of patients used with patient’s or guardians’ consent.
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Nec Aspera Terrent: “Difficulties be Damned”–the Family Motto of Perry Fawcett, Amazonian Explorer
Labadie, Camp Louise, Caracol; Haiti
Our clinic landed in Camp Louise
It has been a very, very busy few weeks…a lot accomplished; we recently treated our 750th patient for this month. That’s an average of 30 patients a day, including minor surgeries, ultrasounds and acting as 24/7 floating urgent care center. In that time, we have also done mobile clinics in Shadda, Coco, Camp Louise and pre-natal vitamin distribution in Caracol and have visited Milot Hospital, Justinian Hospital, and the HHH physiotherapy center and have helped many patients connect with needed specialist care (I got the schedule of all the visiting American specialist teams for the next few months at Milot so I know when and to whom to refer patients).
Pietre, Dave and everyone at Royal Caribbean have been awesome—we are wrapping up
Striking Day to Watch the Royal Carribbean Ships Come In
our time here and getting ready to make our way to Panama to work south of the hurricane zone as the season advances, but I am very grateful to RCCL for making us welcome in Labadie and we will miss everyone when we go.
Scabies scratched and secondarily infected
There’s a saying in medicine: “Common things are common,” and at a certain level of poverty some things become VERY common. Scabies, parasites, respiratory infections and fungal infections are common among my patients, but I hate when several such conditions are found simultaneously in all the members of only one family. A mother, daughter and young son came in with terrible scabies, secondary skin infections from scratching, bad worm infestations, anemia, and chest infections…we medically treated all the ailments, but I spent most of the consult working to make the mom understand the importance of washing, cutting the dirty fingernails of itchy children, washing, not drinking coffee at age 5, washing…and washing. Properly used, a single bar of soap can prevent an awful lot of disease, but poor home conditions and poor health awareness are two regular factors in the illnesses of my patients.
We are barricaded in a single schoolroom to keep from being overrun
We did a mobile clinic by small boat in Camp Louise, a diffuse farming community of a few thousand people living a few miles west of Labadie. We visited the health center there but did our clinic in one of the local schools, treating the school kids and a lot of other children in the neighborhood. We were joined by a nurse from the Camp Louise Clinic, a Doctor, Physio and two teachers and Hannah from the Cap Haitian Health Network. This clinic was a tough one…a crowd of several hundred gathered within minutes; people were trying to literally pull themselves into the room we were working in (we all worked in one room, hot and crowded but impossible to maintain security otherwise). Hannah and the teachers had their hands full trying to keep us from being overrun, but we got through it—as usual in schools, lots and lots of scabies and parasites, and this location had lot of urinary tract infections and bacterial vaginosis in the young kids. Camp Louise is somewhere I would like to spend some time doing health education in the charitable schools there, as the high prevalence and poorer hygiene of the kids with UTIs suggests there might be a special need there.
Aside from the common stuff, the last couple of weeks have also brought us some very
Our Medicine Lifted The Voodoo Arm Pain curse...
unusual cases, and some unfortunate ones. The one that caught me the most off-guard was when I was consulting with a 96-year old woman (she’s in awesome shape, totally ambulatory) presenting with shoulder pain radiating to the arm. As I was writing “?mild strain?arthritis” on her notes, she told me that she had accidentally picked up some cursed money (people don’t like picking up money on the ground in Haiti, because JuJu men will curse the coins and scatter them around) and essentially been voodoo’d, so I gave her an anti-inflammatory and Noah showed her gentle stretches and exercises for improving shoulder stability. A few days later she came in and thanked us because she hadn’t had to go to a voodoo man to pay to remove the curse; our medicine had beaten the voodoo.
Hammerhead Sharkbite
Let’s see…my shark bite victim is all healed up…the kid who came in with his stitched knee all torn open and infected is all healed up, but he’ll have a big scar on that knee for the rest of his life (but gets to keep his leg; it was pretty horrible looking when he came in and we first unwrapped the dirty bandage covering the torn-open, homemade stitches). The other night, just before dinner, we heard a familiar sound…a small wooden boat making its way towards Southern Wind, with a man, a woman, and a young kid with a dark-stained rag wrapped around his leg. He had been cut with broken glass, and a deep, 5-inch laceration on the back of his calf. It was pretty deep, with a lot of fat and connective tissue exposed and swollen with fluid; at first I wasn’t sure if the edges could actually be
Cut With A Broken Bottle ...
closed, but skin is always a lot stretchier than you might think—I washed the wound and sutured it back up, and a few days later the edges had pretty well opposed. Incredibly, the sutures were ready to come out after about 4 days (really—they were already starting to be grown over); I love healthy kids—they heal so fast and bounce back.
This is how I usually spend the journey to a clinic...conserving strength
While walking on the beach, we met a guy whose upper arm bone was completely fractured 2 years ago—I mean completely fractured, and it was never treated at all. It hurt badly for a year…and then the next year, without healing, it somehow stopped hurting and he retained use of the arm. It’s some kind of one in a million medical anomaly; absolutely incredible. His arm essentially has another hinge in it…if you bend the arm, the broken bone tents up under the skin and the arm bends right at the middle of the upper arm—Noah and I were absolutely shocked; this guy needs surgery to screw the 2 broken bones back together, so we are going to see if we can get the surgery arranged with someone before we leave.
got it to hospital that day over mountains...too weak...died 5 days later
And lastly…some bad news…a small baby came in about 5 days ago, age 1 month. It looked premature; it had been born weighing 6 pounds but had lost half its body weight, tipping the scales at a skeletal 3.3 pounds. It had no fever, no diarrhea, no vomiting, no cough, but hadn’t eaten much at all since birth.
The baby was listless and weak; it looked pretty thin at first glance but when Donna unwrapped it, we were shocked and dismayed at its emaciated body. I will always remember the apathy of the mother, the frustration of her sister…but especially the moment when we were examining the baby for its sucking reflex—young babies, if you stroke their cheeks with the tip of your finger, will reflexively turn toward the stimuli (as when the nipple brushes their face when they are being put to breast). This baby repeatedly turned its head away, almost as if it were deliberately giving up…unsettling to watch.
We contacted the Cap Haitian Health Network and got the mom and baby transported over the mountains to a hospital in Cap Haitian where they tried to feed the baby through a nasogastric tube, but last night, after 5 days of deteriorating steadily, the baby died (and it was only fed for 1 or 2 days through the NG because the mom couldn’t afford more…I found out too late or I would have found the funds somewhere!).
Things like this almost always penetrate my Zen, I’m afraid…it takes a lot of determination to let it go when things
1 month old...born 6 pounds...now 3.3 lbs
that shouldn’t happen just keep happening, like that poor guy’s untreated broken arm, or the 10 kids with urinary tract infections I saw in Camp Louise, or that woman’s baby, or the hundreds of other things like that that drop in my lap every month. If you have a 1 month old premature baby that has lost half its body weight you damn well get it care right away, not after it has been deteriorating for a month…but that is easy to say, since to get checked or get prompt neonatal care, care has to actually be available and affordable, and this baby and mother didn’t have that luxury.
So when I sent that baby to the hospital, I knew that it was so fragile it could slip away at any moment, but I knew that its life or death was not mine to decide, only to do everything in my power right then to give it a chance, and the universe would decide. The universe chose to take it back. I’d be lying if I said this time I really, really, really am working hard to not be upset that the result I wanted wasn’t what happened. I wanted the baby to have a future, not just a chance, but I can’t give futures…only chances.
I need more doctors and clinicians out here. Come where your training is REALLY needed!
I love our boat!
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Cap Haitian, Labadee, Shadda, Milot, Coco (east of Bayeux)
Norwegian Crusted Scabies
Today is the 1 year anniversary of when we first set sail from Florida to Petit-Goave. Returning to Petit-Goave after a year and seeing our old friends and patients (and meeting new ones) was an incredible experience, but after a week working in Petit-Goave we weighed anchor and headed north to Cap Haitian. After the Windward Passage, it was great to ride across the smooth glass of the Bay of Haiti, but as we approached Cap-du-Mol on the western tip of Haiti’s northern peninsula we entered the edge of the Windward Passage and had a few rough miles before turning east along Haiti’s north coast, arriving shortly after daylight and pulling onto the commercial docks in the port of Cap Haitian.
We were met by Hannah from the Cap Haitian Health Network, and after several days of
trash river in cap haitian
paperwork and meetings we unloaded our medical cargo onto the docks, onto a truck and got it into the CHHN warehouse, where it will be available for distribution to the clinics that are members of the network. While we were waiting to unload at the dock so we could move to our mobile locations, we took the opportunity to visit a couple of other health centers, meet the minister of health for the north, do a mobile clinic in Shadda—Cap Haitian’s worst slum—and see a steady stream of patients at the dock the entire time we were there.
holly hefting an instrument of war...
It took us almost 4 days to get our material cleared in, which gave us time to visit Milot hospital, the primary center for major or specialist surgery (staffed year round by local and visiting teams) and get a schedule for the next few months of that doctors and specialist teams will be visiting there; that way when I am further afield I can write referral letters and give the dates and doctor’s names to patients I encounter who need specialist care. Above Milot is the Citadel…the largest and most impressive castle I have ever seen, perched on a mountaintop above Cap Haitian. Built after independence, it was made to hold 12,000 troops and be able to fight a devastating guerrilla war from the mountains should Cap Haitian have been re-taken by the French. I liked the raincatchers built into all the roofs, but mostly I was shocked by the size and scale of it. “My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings…Look On My Works, Ye Mighty, And Despair…” The castle was never really used or completed but it has been well preserved as a UNESCO site and SHOULD be a huge tourist draw for anyone visiting Haiti…just plan to bring $10 for a horse if you don’t want to walk all the way up (3,000 feet in 3 miles…I made it but I wanted to have a coronary at the top).
Cap Haitian was not too badly damaged in the earthquake and is quite prosperous in
infected and necrotic burn from hot oil
comparison to other places I’ve been in Haiti, but Shadda, its central slum, was awful. We saw a ton of scabies, which always tells me an area is really poor, and some half-done operations (like a colostomy that has not been reversed though it was supposed to be). A toxic river draining sewage, agricultural and industrial runoff and storm drains from all of Cap Haitian flows between two dykes made of garbage, medical waste and sewage…Donna was saddened to see three children: one standing in a huge pile of garbage, another simultaneously defecating on the pile, and another simultaneously picking a can out of the pile and checking it for scraps of food. The general health of the population in Shadda reflects the surroundings.
a river of sewage, garbage, agricultural and industrial runoff flowing through shadda in cap haitian
By contrast Labaddee, where we moved and dropped anchor to work from this protected fjord, is one of the more prosperous-looking little villes I’ve seen in Haiti—pretty much 100% because of the jobs and income that come with Royal Carribbean Cruise Line’s destination here. RCCL run a school, help support the small clinic in Labaddee, and have extended themselves to us by providing fuel at cost and allowing us to get water from their dock (thank you Peter and Dave!! Lifesavers!!) and do laundry (16 continuous hours of laundry when we first went over there). I
It is important to remember that Labaddee’s prosperity is relative to places likes Shadda,
meeting his first white person, and unafraid
so we still saw loads of bad injuries, poorly healed wounds, a LOT of major operations with little or no follow up (we asked Hannah from CHHN to come do a day of physiotherapy and she is planning to try and come regularly), and some unusual cases also—I treated a little boy with a knee wound all septic with ripped apart stitches (almost all healed now), we ultrasounded nearly every pregnant woman in the village of 6,000, and after only two days people started coming out to the boat, night or day, for emergency care.
You never know what will arrive paddling up in a canoe at 10:00 at night—a guy came by
wound care for the skarkbite victim
the other night and I saw the blood-soaked rag wrapped around his left hand. We pulled him aboard and unwrapped the hand to find he had been bitten by an 8 foot hammerhead shark (HE says 8 feet…but I’m a fisherman too, so I say read ‘5-6 foot;’plus 5-6 feet is about right for the bite radius). We patched it up and he has come every day for dressing changes. I understand he was offshore, tried to pull the hammerhead into his small boat, and it got the best of him before it escaped. Two worlds collide…Shark one, fisherman zero (for a change).
Me and Jean Claude, one of Cousteau's original divers and one of my heroes
Speaking of worlds colliding, I am fortunate here to have met one of my childhood heroes, Jean-Claude (one of Jacques Cousteau’s original divers), who has built and run the Cormier Plage hotel near Labadie for the last 23 years. He is 79 years old, dives every single day, swims a couple of miles in the ocean every couple of days, and showed me the artifacts he has collected off wrecks he has discovered over 23 years of diving this dangerous lee shore (I nearly keeled over in shock at the collection of priceless artifacts he has recovered for a museum display when it is complete).
I think that so far one of my favorite days here in the North so far has been setting off
The only way to pass a physically uncomfortable journey
from our ship on an 11 mile trip in a leaky handmade wooden boat with no floor or seats, run by one of our new friends here, through a treacherous series of shallow reefs (on a lee shore, too…bet there’s lots of ships’ bones down there), landing not far from columbus’s landing in the new world. I’ll always have a memory of Sky sitting on the bow trying to keep her back from being destroyed, scanning the mile-long, desolate beach for our contact and a safe passage through the surf. We located our contact and another boat rowed out through the surf, we transferred our gear and under oars we backed through the surf.
Donna’s shorts were soaked in the landing and she abandoned them, so partially clothed
sky clerking in a kid 8 years old going on 47...
we put our gear on our backs and heads and followed our guide off the beach into the trees, stopping at a small school in a village supported by Dr. Anne, an HIV specialist who helped make this mission possible. We did health checks on all the kids in the school, treating a LOT of scabies and skin fungus, respiratory tract infections, some severe malnutrition from parasite infestation, anemia, and a pre-teen patient who told us they ‘had dirty blood’ from birth. This patient travels 2 days once a month to visit a doctor providing their meds. And, as per our SOP, we gave vitamins and albendazole (for worms) to every kid (and quite a few adults, too).
I love the mobile clinics…each one is its own adventure, at the end of it I have a wealth of valuable firsthand information about the location, and I’ve never done one that did not have at least one patient that I was very, very glad to have come to see.
And to be honest, it also felt good to ply the same waters as Columbus for a short time. I
landing our clinic through the surf a short distance from where columbus first made landfall in the new world...
hope the legacy we leave behind has a kinder footprint than his, but I loved rowing through the surf to land in a new place, with mystery and unknown patients waiting somewhere beyond the tree line in the Haiti’s own heart of darkness. Humans aren’t meant to look at cubicle walls…we are hardwired with the desire to stand on new worlds and look to the next. All of us have the explorer soul written into our DNA, and the expression of this most uniquely human characteristic is always a beautiful thing—I think it is when we are being the most true to who we are as human beings.
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Petit-Goave, Haiti–Almost a Year To The Day We First Arrived Here In 2010
This is the overdue final chapter of our voyage from Honduras to Haiti, bringing supplies for the cholera relief and personnel for a string of clinics and villages along the north coast.
Sky clerking in our first patients
After our repairs in Kingston were complete, all that remained was to chomp on the bit while only 40 miles away on the north side of Jamaica’s Blue Mountains a series of storms swept down the Windward Passage and collided with a SE swell across our path. At the first day when the swells and wind subsided, we left Kingston at first light and made all speed for the Windward Passage. Once we got out of the shadow of Jamaica, we encountered the most disorganized sea I’ve ever seen—in the space of five minutes we would encounter NE, SE, W, and N swell…thank god the wind had died or it would have been a horrible bathtub; as it was it was merely uncomfortable until we ghosted into the protection of the Bay of Haiti and at last dropped anchor in Petit-Goave, the first place we ever went for a mission…almost a year to the day that we first arrived in Haiti.
An hour after we dropped anchor, in the dead of night, our first friend from Petit-Goave,
Carrying our clinic bags back to the shore from our Fort Liberte clinic
Aniel, came out in a canoe…the next day, we saw dozens of people we knew; we went back to the DesGranges clinic and saw Meomene and ‘Cheeks’ and the kids who were there when we left. The two schools we built are now surrounded by larger concrete structures in mid construction; a larger future school sponsored by Korea, I think…but when we walked up to our little schools, each one was packed with kids and classes were in session as they have been since we built them. That was a great feeling…the pharmacy we cleaned and reorganized, and the day patient treatment room and the minor ops room were all organized and cleaned as when we left, and more rebuilding and expansion was still going on. We left a box of supplies for Dr. Cutler, an MD from L.A. who we arranged to go out ahead of us last year and who is returning to Petit-Goave to volunteer again this year—I think he actually arrived yesterday, as a matter of fact.
A scene from the past...on our way to our first shore clinic 18 hours after arriving in Petit-Goave
It was so different arriving here this time…amazingly, most of the rubble had been cleared, and most of the tents crowding every street were nowhere in sight. Some houses had been rebuilt (in concrete block without much rebar and suspect cement), but we saw hundreds of wood frame and tin roof one-room structures, on new poured concrete foundations from (apparently) a Swiss-led European consortium. More commerce was happening, some small businesses had reopened, and the central park was clear of tents and refugees.
I admit, when we left Petit-Goave after witnessing both the massive problems the
The only catch we made trolling in Haitian waters...a bag of used maxi pads
Haitians wake up to every morning and the effects of much of the relief efforts after the earthquake, I was not expecting the level of improvement that we saw. My journey to Port-Au-Prince to drop a volunteer off at the airport, however, was much more depressing…a city imploding on itself, with little visible progress over the past year of funds and relief being poured into it. Petit-Goave’s determination to pull itself out of its downward spiral it gave me a renewed hope for Haiti, a hope that I could see in the faces of all of our friends and the new people we saw.
Ultrasound revealed cholecystitis (gall bladder); antibiotics and analgesia given
The best moments for me came during the mobile clinics we ran, on the beach at Fort Liberte and in the ruins of an old French fort back from the coast a mile or so. I saw babies that I had ultrasounded 8 months ago and were born while we were away, patients showed me their thin scars where large machete wounds used to be…when I pulled onto the beach in the first load (two trips in the skiff from the boat to our clinic), the kids in the village saw us coming and ran down the beach yelling ‘Sky?! Rachel?!’ and we were surrounded by everyone we knew and treated in the mobile clinics last year. We wormed everyone again, handed out thousands of vitamins, and saw the usual litany of problems great and small—but we saw one patient in our first mobile clinic–less than 18 hors after we arrived–that made the whole 38 days of struggle and travel to get to Haiti worthwhile.
In the little enclave of cactus on the shore west of Petit-Goave, sitting in the same spot
There are worse waiting rooms
that we did our very first ever mobile clinic as Floating Doctors, we saw a 6-day old baby with an eye infection from Chlamydia or gonorrhea (or both) acquired during birth. This is a very serious, time sensitive problem–a few more days untreated and scarring develops, blinding the child forever (and cross infection and blinding in the originally uninfected eye are very common). We treated the mom and dad and used several days of rigorous cleaning and washing, and antibiotic eye ointment, and the greatest moment of our return for me was watching the pus-filled swollen eye lose its swelling and turn clear—just a few more days and the baby would probably have been blind forever.
Crew shot at the dock in Kingston 3/17/11
It’s not about saving the day, or being a hero…it’s about timing. It’s about being there, and being available as a resource to people who have no other options. A single patient treated at just the right place and just the right time to prevent a lifetime’s worth of suffering for a baby already born into a hard existence. If we had not been delayed by bad weather and bad fuel on the way from Honduras to Haiti, we would have arrived and departed Petit-Goave for Cap Haitian weeks before the baby was born…and when we finished working around Cap Haitian and returned to Petit-Goave, we would have found a blind 1 month old baby.
Life tends to unfold on schedule…not always the schedule I want, and most of the time I never get to know why things happen just the way they do. But sometimes we get a glimpse of a purpose…sometimes what we endure in life makes sense after the fact, and every moment of struggle and frustration and discomfort and fear during the voyage here suddenly became a price I would pay a hundred times over if it meant being able to be there at that exact moment with everything necessary so that baby will get the chance to grow up with both its eyes working.
Dr. Holly saw the baby and when I wandered over to investigate and the problem became
We strip excess packaging from what we bring aboard; this is the total trash generated from a clinic with 80 patients (including ultrasound and two small surgeries)
clear, I though “Ahhhhh….so THAT was why we had to go through that crossing.” If we saw not a single other patient there are people who would say the journey was wasted…the old numbers game; people always want to know how many patients seen (over 5,000 so far), how many vitamins (over a million given away so far), etc…and those numbers are important in making sure the investment of resources is not ‘wasted’…but when I get a patient like that baby, the numbers become meaningless and that one patient becomes, for a moment, your whole reason for existing at all.
To that baby and her parents and to me, it seemed pretty worthwhile that we were there and equipped to help…and we see hundreds of people like this, whose paths cross ours at crucial moments when only a small intervention is necessary to change a life forever.
And with each such patient, our lives are also changed forever and a memory is created that I know I will playback to myself many years from now when my adventuring days have ended and smile and wonder how that little intervention in time played out on the world’s stage ove the years. I’ll likely never know–the years-later effects of what we do aren’t ultimately up to me, but I’ll always remember that we were able to help give people a chance at better lives and futures, and no one will ever be able to take that away from us.
Sunset behind us as we ghost east in the bay of Haiti on our final leg to Petit-Goave
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Part 3 of Our Transit: Cayman to Jamaica
Trouble ahead...out of nowhere
We departed Grand Cayman on a beautiful sunny morning, anxiously clearing past
Left: Polished Fuel; Right: Same Fuel as It Came Out Of The Hose In Roatan
the eastern end of the island and waiting to see if an unexpected northeast swell would devastate us, but all seemed tranquil with gentle 1-2 foot seas and clear skies. With the calm water, our fuel (having already been filtered through 10 of our filter cartridges) wasn’t sloshing badly, and our port engine was running smoothly. When it did require a filter change it was comfortable to drift forward for ten minutes while we changed filters.
The next day, as we bore further south, we started to take the wind just forward of
Holly Steering In Rough Seas
the beam. We shook out the sails, gaining another 2.5 knots to the port engine, but as we came within sight of the western tip of Jamaica, waves wrapping around the north AND south of Jamaica were building and converging on our position at 45-90 degrees to each other, and building fast. As night fell, we were well east along Jamaica but still 50 miles offshore, having worn south to use the wind longer. We turned east and pulled the sails down, securing the ship in anticipation of yet another nasty sea coming…and we were not disappointed.
Sky trying to keep her back together...
The seas came round close to the starboard beam, and the period shortened as we drove dead into the wind. Fuel started sloshing, and we soon found ourselves dead in the water as the port engine sucked up the sludge that was our fuel. Frantic filter changes continued, with increased urgency each time as we bore closer to the lee shore. We downloaded a weather report through our satphone (tough to hold the antennae southwest in that sea state) and realized that, once again, unexpected bad weather (11-12 foot seas and 35 mph winds) were coming to the windward passage, and we knew that we would be very, very lucky to make it around Jamaica’a eastern tip and pull into Port Antonio on the north side.
As day broke, Sky and I made the decision to divert to Kingston, which we might be able to reach before dark.
Getting stability and 2.5 knots extra from the sails...
As we approached, we were not able to raise any of the Jamaican officials. It was a public holiday. We raised a local boater on VHF who connected us with a retired Evinrude dealer, who lived up the mountains and monitored all marine radio traffic. We rendezvoused with the first boater at a small cay off Kingston. He lent me a chart and pointed out the unmarked location of the
Making An Electrical Repair When He Should Be Asleep...But Has No Choice
customs area, a small unmarked anchorage, and the Royal Jamaican Yacht Club anchorage, also unmarked and uncharted. Then, our new friend Tony Tame up on the mountain contacted the customs, immigration, health, and port officials, and we made our final, hair raising approach past Wreck Reef’s dangerous lee shore into Kingston’s main channel and the protection of its harbor…what a relief.
Talking To Ensley, Carib Maritime's Master Mechanic About Where To Find Parts
Within 2 hours we were cleared in and allowed to proceed to the yacht club, where we dropped anchor and collapsed asleep. We then spent 24 hours on reconnaissance; getting a Jamaican sim card and number for the blackberry, finding and calling stores that might carry the parts we needed, finding and arranging transport into town to search for what we need at stores we had already
Ed, source the fuel filters, assembly and additional parts...
contacted. The kind master mechanic and master engineer from the neighboring Carribbean Maritime Training Institute drove us all over town and helped us figure out where to find what we needed. Within 72 hours, we had obtained and installed all the parts that we needed to repair our engine systems (and incidentally, our alternator) and had polished the 400 gallons of diesel in our tanks…opening each of the three tanks’ access hatches, pumping out and filtering all the fuel, scrubbing and vacuuming the sludge from the bottom and then re-sealing the tanks. We finished at midnight, took on fuel the next day and then were invited by the yacht club to wait for weather at their dock.
Borrowing Luther's Fuel Polisher
What a relief! Tied to the dock, everything is easier, and anchor watches don’t need to be set. It will be hard enough in Haiti; it is great that everyone might get a chance to rest now. The weather is driving us crazy…there is a huge high pressure system over the east, sending howling winds down the Windward Passage, and a SE swell meeting it…it is nasty there, and we are heavily loaded with IV fluids.
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Note: This is Part 2 of the story of our voyage from Honduras to Haiti
Awesome!!
First, I will say that the first 48 hours of this crossing from Guanaja to Jamaica will remain with me forever as two of the greatest days I have ever spent on the water…so good that even at the end of the second day, we said to each other that we would surely pay dearly for the day we had. And pay we did…I wish we had pictures of the madness that ensued when things turned from paradise to misery, but by then we were working too hard to remedy our situation, and too sick, to pick up a camera.
Those first 2 days, however, we cruised at 7 knots over a glassy Caribbean sea, with clouds reflected in it, catching fish after fish—dorado, tuna, wahoo, longbill spearfish, blue marlin at sunset, barracuda, grouper (when we passed over the reefs of Swan Island on the morning of the second day) and Jacks. One of the most epic and beautiful days on the water ever—but it meant that when I was off-watch (I had the con from 12-4 AM/PM), dawn was just coming so two full days of catching fish almost hourly kept me awake all day, catching only an hour or two in the evening after dinner.
Sky Directing The Reef Passage
On the morning of the 3rd day, I went to bed around 4:30 AM after my watch, but since my bunk is in the forepeak I feel the seas pretty badly when we are pitching, and I woke to hell…a wild sea, and a cross sea with the wind out of the northeast and the swell from the southeast. We strapped everything down and bore down dead ahead, climbing up the faces of the swells and coming down hard; Southern Wind handles seas on the bow pretty well, but this Caribbean sea is like a bathtub! Every sailor I’ve talked to says it is choppy, unpredictable, subject to sudden changes in weather, and watching the 3rd day of this supposed 7-day weather window dawn to whitecaps and a short cross-swell makes me long for the long rolling groundswell of the Pacific.
Our journey probably would have been merely miserable but uneventful, but 60 miles south of Grand Cayman
Ed Calmy Maneuvering Through The Narrow Slots
and only a day and a half from Jamaica, bad fuel we took on in Honduras (the worst I have ever seen…might as well have put gutter water in our tanks) started sloshing in our tanks and our fuel filters soon became clogged…Ed and Larson spent hour after hour in the engine room shutting down one engine at a time, changing filter cartridges (good thing we stocked up in Roatan with enough to last—we thought—6 months), until one of the canister cartridges grew so hot the metal fatigued and broke, disabling the starboard engine (to run it unfiltered, as we then rigged it in case of emergency, would have seized all our injectors and the engine would have been much more damaged).
Noah Changing A Light Bulb
When the port engine fuel filter clogged again, as we struggled to change it in the heaving engine room and reprime the fuel system, we turned beam onto the seas and started to roll. I threw lawn chairs tied to heavy lines off our bow to act as a sea anchor and hold our bow to the weather, and Noah, Dr. Holly and Randy worked to bring the sails up as we turned north to try and make it to Cayman. Sky raised a nearby freighter on the VHF, whose radio operator relayed our position and situation to Cayman port authorities and USCG Miami, and the Jamaican Coast Guard. The freighter stood ready to divert and take us off if necessary, and Sky contacted USCG directly on Satphone to update them with our position and situation in case a major rescue should become necessary. It meant a great deal to us that the freighter was willing to divert and rescue us if our ship had been lost; when we were in Roatan we saw a captain on another ship be told by the owner NOT to divert to help a sailboat that had gone up on the rocks on a channel entrance; the captain was very shaken up by this as he felt it was very, very bad karma. The law of the sea is the ethos of Floating Doctors…always stop and help, since you never know when it might be you on the receiving end of assistance
However, because I have a ship that refuses to give up fighting and a crew that can tackle any challenge and
A Fresh Steel Pin Goes Into Place...
function even under horrible conditions (even if afterwards we all have a series of quiet heart attacks and have lost weight from vomiting), we refused to give up the battle and with the wind sustained at 25 knots on the beam, the sails stabilized us (I immediately felt it in the engine room) and for a while we made 4.5 knots under sail alone (so much for the skeptics! We may not have all the sail Southern Wind had before her mast was shortened, and she’ll never be a racer, but she was a champion that day).
Repairing A Broken Bolt On Our Spreaders From Being Shaken So Hard
One the sails were up and I saw that we were making headway safely (if slowly) toward Cayman, I don’t remember much more for the next few hours as I think someone made me go lie down. One of the last things I remember is that the port engine had just been restarted (had to be re-primed with fuel every time the filter clogged) I think, and I put my head down on it in the engine room to fall asleep. It was awesome to make the transit with other captains onboard…otherwise I would have had no choice but to remain awake and functional (the most dangerous scenario faced by solo long-distance sailors). I was pretty dehydrated (had had no water for almost 24 hours, had been vomiting, had not eaten for 2 days, and had been awake for almost 4 days…Ed and Larson (and all of us, really) had a similar experience, and we were crazed when we finally pulled in sight of Cayman.
Holly and I brought the boat the last leg to Cayman and Holly (what a trooper) took the helm and let me sleep a little as we stood offshore, waiting for daylight to make our final approach to dock and clear in at Grand Cayman. We knew a mooring was available free, but first we had to visit the customs dock to clear in before we could move to the mooring and finally relax and sleep. I must have looked wild-eyed in the Port Captain’s office but they must be used to it as we cleared in with no difficulty and got onto the mooring asap.
Nick With Bags Of Sludge-Soaked Diesel Filters and Rags
We spent two days in Cayman waiting for the weather to open (or so we and various government and commercial weather prediction services believed it was going to), made a few repairs and tried to recover from the mess and shock of our previous crossing. We didn’t see much of Cayman (saw a lot of the inside of our engine room!) but the water there was beautiful, and it was a shock to be somewhere with good services available. Our next departure, we thought, would see us arriving in Port Antonio, Jamaica to take on some fuel and fix our broken fuel filter and tie up to a dock one last time for a night before crossing the Windward Passage and beginning our mission in Haiti (where we will likely be anchored in poor holding ground of uncertain depth, and it is impossible to completely relax).
The starboard engine could be used in an emergency (though it would surely soon seize if it had to be run), and
Sunset In The Caymans
the port engine was functioning adequately to make it to Jamaica in good weather. Repairs were more practical in Jamaica, so at the next weather window we sailed for Jamaica on a calm, flat day…that was not destined to remain so for long.
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Note: A month ago we departed from Roatan for a ten-day transit to Haiti, with a stop in Isla Guanaja to clear out of Honduras and a stop in Port Antonio, Jamaica, for fuel and a night’s sleep before the final 36 hours to Petit-Goave, our first destination In Haiti.
That was the plan, anyway.
The next couple of updates, written here in Kingston, will tell the saga of what happened and catch us up from Roatan to here in Jamaica…I have written them all in one go, and will post one a day till we are caught up.
March 1, 2010–Isla Roatan to Isla Guanaja, Honduras
Ernest Shackleton's Recruiting Ad...
We knew it would be an up-wind, up-current battle the whole way to Haiti, so we made the 40-mile run from Roatan to Isla Guanaja to clear out, and wait for a weather window long enough to reach the protection of Jamaica. When we got to Guanaja through 6 foot, choppy seas coming from the east, there was no room in the only protected anchorage and we anchored outside in the channel, where it
Each Red Line Shows Our New Swing Line As We Dragged And Reset All Night
proceeded to blow hard from the E and SE for 9 days. We dragged anchor several times before finally putting out a second bow anchor, which seemed to hold, but we spent many hours at night watching our chartplotter and peering out at Dunbar Rock to see if it loomed any closer in the darkness than it had 5 minutes before as we bucked and swung on our anchors.
Ed Wiring A Cell Phone Charger To Our Generator To Make It Work
Our generator was not putting out full power; its regulator control board had finally failed (it had done well to survive the lightning strike at all) but Ed managed to coax it to produce some power by using an old cell phone charger, wired directly to the circuit board, plugged into a small dashboard inverter which he wired directly to our battery bank. Thus, we were able to excite the part of the generator circuitry that allowed the generator to produce power, but it would frequently get hot and fail and need to be reset.
It turned out that I had to fly back to Roatan on a puddlejumper with all of our passports to clear out of Honduras, and we also had several cases of vitamins, IV fluids, gauze, syringes, antibiotics, heart monitors, and other supplies to deliver to the health center on Guanaja. I went back to Roatan and got everybody cleared out of Honduras, and when I got back we connected with the director there and we arranged for me and Dr. Holly to help out in the clinic. Holly saw patients for general consults, and I did ultrasounds on some pregnant women and women with abdominal masses.
We also managed to revisit a patient we saw when we were there in October—the patient that we suspected had
A Good Omen For The Crossing??
elephantaiasis. With a tropical medicine specialist onboard, and armed with the opinions and advice of many clinicians (form as far away as Fiji!) who wrote to offer suggestions, we re-examined him and decided on a course of treatment that might at least stop forward progression of the symptoms by killing any active filarial worms, and Noah taught him a series of exercises and techniques to try and increase lymphatic drainage. The next time we visit Guanaja, I hope he will show improvement…at least no progression!
Our Path Through The Reef...The Asterisks And Pluses Are Exposed/Awash Rocks
We endured the wind and anxiety of anchor dragging for 8 days, finally moving to the backside of the island and negotiating a narrow, twisting reef passage to an anchorage with some protection. We still dragged, but only a little, so we managed to have a semi-restful last night and in the morning the sea and wind died down to nothing and we nosed out through the reef passage and headed NE towards Jamaica. Little did we know that the calm glassy waters of our departure would not last for long…
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Being in charge of all of the cooking on board can sometimes be a daunting task. It is important to me that the food I serve is both nutritious as well as tasty and being far from home with ingredients that are foreign to me and the crew can be a work in progress. Over my months at sea I have learned a lot from the locals that I have become close to and I have ended up adopting a lot of their recipes into my every day culinary repertoire.
Below is a recipe for a dish called Pickeleze that I learned while I was in Haiti. It is a delicious side salad, sandwich topper, meat garnish, and goes with just about everything! My favorite is to put it onto top of bbq fish tacos! This is a great way to add crunch, spice, and flavor to a dish without adding almost any fat. Cabbage is a great source for fiber, mangnesium, iron, and omega-3’s as well as sodium, zinc and copper. Carrots are not only sweet and delicious in this dish but they add a good dose of Vitamin C, Vitamin B6, and folate. Being that this dish is only “cooked” in the acids of the salad a lot of the nutritional content stays with the veggies. I hope that you enjoy this as much as I do!
Ingredients Needed
Vegetables:
1 Head Cabbage
2 Scotch Bonnet Peppers (Closest to Habanero)
1 Large Carrot
Marinade:
2 Tbsp White Vinegar
3 Limes
1 Cube Boullion (Optional)
1 tsp Salt
Preparation:
In a salad bowl mix the Vinegar, Juice of 3 limes, Salt, and Boullion together.
(Boullion is packed full of sodium and can easily be omitted. It adds a depth of flavor to the salad but can be replaced with ½ teaspoon of Poultry Seasoning)
Marinade
Shave peppers into thin slices and drop into the marinade mixture.
(This dish can vary from very hot to mild depending on the type and quantities of peppers you use. Jalapeño peppers can be used as a substitute. The spice of the dish is really mellowed out by the vinegar so don’t be afraid to try to use the peppers!)
Using a Cheese Grater shred the carrot and mix into marinade.
Marinade with Carrots and Peppers
Quarter the cabbage head, remove the heart, and shave into thin slices.
Add the Cabbage and Voila! Pickeleze!
(The thinner the slice the easier the cabbage will “cook” in the acid marinade. This can be time consuming and the cabbage can always be grated on the cheese grater for the same effect!)
Mix the cabbage into the marinade and carrot mixture and let stand for 20 minutes. Stir every 5 minutes getting the liquid mixed in with the cabbage, serve, and ENJOY!)
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Holly and I finally face the task of completely clearing out, organizing, and restocking our medical go-bags
This week saw the first heavy, 3 day long pouring rain for several weeks (of course, while we are trying to load the boat and finish our preparations for departure) and the tying off of many threads we have been following for months…we closed up our clinic in Oakridge, packing everything up and saying hasta luego a mi pacientes. Un momento muy difficile. Thank goodness we plan to return to open the clinic permanently as a satellite clinic, open every day with a doctor and staff on site even when Southern Wind is working elsewhere. Knowing we are coming back after this voyage, and knowing that with what we learned and the relationships we forged on Roatan, we can and will open that clinic, makes it much easier to say farewell. Instead, we say (we are going to Haiti, after all) aur revoir.
We finished off a lot of rainy day projects inside the boat (there are always, always more
Capt. Ed cutting a new gasket for our 671 GM engine pan...doin' it old school
projects), and got down to the business of prepping to load—that means taking every item out of its storage onboard, condensing everything, repacking all our medical go-bags (thank you Dr. Holly!), and most important: we took delivery of our 5 pallets of material left over in Miami from our last mission to Haiti (thank you Gary, Donna, and everyone at Roatan Rotary!), and our 40-foot container from Direct Relief International, packed with medicine and equipment for the clinics in the island and distributed the material to 5 clinics and the public hospital on the island.
And the unloading begins...
This is a crowning moment for Sky. To get this container in, it required over 1,000 emails between Sky, the shipping company, Direct Relief International, Joseph Natale from Fundacion Heart Ventures, the customs office, the customs broker, Roatan Rotary, a cross-country trucking company and a local trucking company in Miami and another in Roatan, the warehouse in Miami with our 5 leftover pallets, the Ministry of Health in Honduras, 6 different clinics on Roatan, and Cepudo (a Honduran NGO on the mainland).
Roatan Public Hospital emergency room with the floor up to fix the backed up sewer
The difficulty is not in sending down material—anyone can order a container and have it
Gary and Sky picking up the pallets Rotary helped us bring in
shipped down here…but not without enormous import fees. It is sending down material and getting it cleared through customs as donated material without $30,000 worth of customs duties applied that is difficult, not to mention that we wanted to create a conduit so that we could send containers on a regular basis. One time is easy…to set it up to be sustainable is way, way more difficult. It took more than anyone else will ever know to get it set up by Sky, but I will always know and always be impressed how much the people you already love and admire can still amaze you.
Holly checking the pile earmarked for the Pandytown Centro de Salud
In a few months I will begin contacting the clinics again, finding out their needs and getting another request for DRI and container number 2…
Our staging area for the distribution to the clinics--thank you Gary and Donna for letting us use the tents!!!! Lifesavers!
Our aid station at the triathlon finish line
In the midst of all this, we still see patients, provided the medical service for the Bay Islands Triathalon (including the kayaks monitoring the swimmers during the first leg), and Dr. Holly—whose training
heading out...some swimmers were really struggling, and a few got lost and started to swim to Guatemala, but thankfully no one went under and didn't come back up
includes major scene accident management—provided 2 days of training for the Fire Department, following up the training provided by our volunteer Sirin last year.
Maintaining head control as Johel comes out
Dr. Holly showed the firemen a particular extrication trick—when you have a patient with suspected spinal injury from a car accident, you can extract the patient through the back window by lowering the front seat, sliding the board in through the back window and taking the patient straight out. Since we have the use of Gary and Donna’s open jeep, we could simulate the extraction without having to smash a car’s back window. We are nothing if not adaptable.
The weather is looking good for this weekend (pouring rain now)…high pressure pushing down, maybe keeping the low centers at bay over our projected route. Loading the IV fluids tomorrow and the next day…Finish securing the boat for sea…provisioning….and a last good night’s sleep.
Then give me that horizon.
Photos of patients used with patients’ express permission.
Photos of unloading and interior boat construction (pretty much most of the nice-looking photos) courtesy of Dan Chomistek
