News from RescueNet
David Skeat
Friday, January 22nd 2010
Direct communication with the team is difficult so some updates are a little behind.
Wednesday - the team went to a few sites yesterday which have promise. One was a ?clinic? (read: tarps on poles) across the street from the presidential palace. Someone has brought a 1 month old baby down who had full-thickness burns over her left arm and had been pulled out of the rubble the day before (5 days after) and was in bad shape. The nurses began rehydrating her and caring for the wounds.
Her mother was reported to have been rescued but was up in a tent city nearby with no care and not doing well. The Y guys xported us up to her. The Y guys took us up in their pickup and we found her. She was dehydrated, lethargic and had many severe abrasions that were infected, severe abdominal pain and had lost motor function in her foot. We cleaned and bandaged her, carried her out and drove her down to the clinic where she was reunited with her mother. They were both then taken by ambulance to a functioning hospital. Felt good to do the work!
Mark, Kay and the Erikas were strongly invited to join a group of nurses and doctors at a still functional hospital where they saw, as Mark put it, ?wounds I have never seen before in my life.? Multiple amputations, crush injuries, massive soft tissue damage, fractures of all kinds. In the hospital they were performing amputations without any anesthesia. (from Robin? the RN team were not doing the amputations but they performed the after surgery care to the patient.) There was, of course, much screaming. Once patients were assessed and triaged, those not critical were carried back outside onto the hospital grounds to await their turn. That could be days. And with food almost impossible to find, it still looks grim for them.
Many people here have not eaten since the quake. Food is just that hard to come by. Shops are either destroyed or closed or simply empty.
Some of the team saw some pretty intense stuff yesterday, so keep them in prayer for healing and coping.
Today we are waiting for a few leads to pan out. Mark and team are planning to return to the same hospital, but they haven?t been able to send a car yet. Transport is also nearly impossible. Even if you can get a car here from the UN they won?t release it unless you have security, which we don?t.
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