How ironic that my blog last night was on traffic safety in Haiti, because our medical team stumbled upon our first accident today. We had finished our clinic today and was driving back to the base, a little later than usual, when our group was the first on the scene. We had 3 doctors in our Land Rover, 2 nurses (me and an ER nurse), the driver, the pastor, and a translator!
My first thoughts were I'm staying in the car while they check out the scene. I may be a nurse, but I don't do injuries with people fingle fangled every which way. I'm a tele nurse! I deal with heart attacks, strokes, and surgical wounds. People's hearts stop beating other ways that aren't caused by trauma! So there were 2 trucks on an incline, on a narrow road half covered by rocks from the mountain on the side of the road. One was a spaghetti truck, one was a flour truck! One truck was tipped on it's side, the other was standing straight up on its front nose! The first thing I saw was someone standing up covered head to toe with flour. The only thing I could see was their eyes! I'm thinking what is going on here! People are standing up on the side of the road covered in flour!
There was our team and then a few bystanders who were trying to dig the people out from beneath the 50-75lb flour bags, and 20-25lb bundles of spaghetti packages. There were 3 men in the spaghetti truck pinned in their seats, dangling over the metal frame at the waste, with another piece of metal over the top of them holding them in. They had blood all over their heads and coming from their mouths. There were fractures all over the place, and I saw the tibia/fibula broken completely through the skin at the ankle with the foot hanging on by skin. There was a couple people pinned under the flour truck! All too much for me. I was crying and freaking out, because I didn't know what to do! I knew I wasn't going to be helping the men trapped! I knew I couldn't deal with open fracture wounds, I'd faint! So I ran and got the dressing kits, IV kits, and water from our Land Rover. Then I put my 6 weeks of working out almost everyday to good use! I lifted package after package of a spaghetti mountain to look for people underneath. It was a 95 degree and exceedingly humid here in Haiti today. We already had sweat rolling off of us at the clinic. I just so happened to wear a t-shirt to clinic today, instead of a hot scrub top. My t-shirt was completely soaked, I was covered in flour, and tossing spaghetti bundles after being absolutely exhausted already from going to bed a tad later last night. I was shaking from the adrenaline rush, and continued to shake for awhile after we left. 1 Corinthians 10:13 I believe is "The Lord will never give you more than you are able to bear. For when you are tempted, he will provide a way out, so that you can rise up!"(Sorry NLW ladies that I didn't perfectly recite that one, since it was one of our memory verses!) Decapitation would have been more than what I could have handled. I was not made to be a paramedic nor an ER nurse. I have the vivid images in my head of the traumatic stuff. I've never seen bones through skin before, but I have seen blood being vomited. At the end of it all I saw 2 dead bodies, but what the Lord spared my eyes was seeing the decapitated people. That would have been more than I could have handled, and I know I would not be sleeping tonight if I saw that!
Samaritan's Purse has a safety activation system. Our doctor called the base to the head security officer, who then notified other NGOs, the ambulance, etc of the accident. She said that in past accidents no ambulances had come nor were the civilians willing to help take people to the hospital. Today civilians were driving by in their flatbed trucks hauling patients with fractures to the hospital for us! Ambulances came! There were other medical personnel arriving from other NGOs! The UN arrived! It was truly the Lord that so many people showed up to help! Several men were pulling and pulling on the metal that had the 3 men trapped in their truck, but were gaining no leverage when our driver came up with the idea of our jack. The jack is what got those men out of that truck. They were all conscious when we arrived to the scene, but do to losing blood and the heat they were unconscious when being hauled away. An IV was started on one and he was hauled away to the hospital, and arrived at the hospital still alive! One of the doctors said one had a trapped foot, and he was able to free the foot by pushing the seat back.
There were 100s of Haitians at the scene wailing and crying. They were standing in the way staring! Standing on the flour where people could have been under! We were told when arriving at the base that an accident would probably be an occurrence during our trip and that it was up to our own discretion if we stop. Riots can break out, even against those trying to help! I got worried for a moment when a few of the Haitians were fighting! Anything can trigger something larger! They were pulling back the sheets to take pictures of the deceased. It's crazy chaos!
As if this accident wasn't unbelievable enough as we drove home we drove by our usual gas station. The long gas truck that came in was leaking out the gas. The Haitians had their buckets and were collecting free gas. All the way down the road we saw person after person with bucket on their head carrying the gasoline home! As we continued to drive we saw people sitting on the edge of the highway that didn't have a shoulder in the pitch black dark! Safety around here is a concept that so many have no idea about. It's crazzzyyyyy!
