Landstuhl Bound Once More...

It is difficult for me to put my thoughts into words (which is so unlike me) from our Airline Ambassador mission to visit the wounded soldiers at Landstuhl, Germany again - this time from 24 to 31Jan. We were unable to visit the wounded in the hospital wards, but are hoping to be able to get approval for that at some point in the future. However, just as important as any visit to a troop (which I was told can describe one person, or many) in the hospital .. is to spend quality time with those who are at the USO "Wounded Warrior" center. This is where we made dinner for anywhere from 50 to 80 troops the night we served Mexican food.

It was so wonderful to have all the Valentine's messages from complete strangers to hand out and I really want to extend my gratitude to those who took the time to write and send them to me. As you can see from the photo, there were plenty of Valentine's goodies to share.

There were many stories shared, each as vitally important as the other. Please keep in mind that Landstuhl is the place the troops go from the battlefield. From there, they either go back "down range" or to the States for further treatment. Often they are only at Landstuhl for a maximum of 2 weeks. This means it is a place of transition ... Some of the guys and gals we spoke with did not feel their injuries (whether mental or physical) were that "bad". To have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder because of your experiences can be so hard.

The volunteers who were with me on this trip, are new to Airline Ambassadors. Amy and Debra were phenomenal in the way they interacted with the troops, and you would have thought they had been doing this for years. There really is so much more I could say about the trip .. but just know that I am thankful I was able to "show up" and make a difference for our wounded soldiers and from learning more and more what they sacrifice .. and how much they have to cope with upon their return.

Robin

On the Way Out...

Lots of things happened the morning I left:

Saw fellow Health4haiti volunteer/co-organizer Karla Prentiss at the airport as she was leaving with Medishare team on the same plane that had just delivered me 20,000 pounds of surgical supplies from a list I submitted on my deployment 2 weeks ago. She worked in the command center of the University of Miami's large field hospital at the airport this past week and sounds like was as indispensable to them as she is to our organization in Pueblo. She introduced me to a neurosurgeon going out with her whom she had had to 'pull out of the operating room where he was doing brain surgery this morning' to get him to the plane. (I think she let him finish his surgery...).

I walked the airforce forklifts with the pallets of stuff over to our trucks myself prior to getting on my own flight out.

May have found a new doc to take my place as medical director/organizer for our rapidly developing and robust supply and distribution network of medical personnel and equipment on the ground in Haiti (Airline Ambassadors International), now just two weeks old. This will help Dave Rivard of Airline Ambassadors and AAI's Haiti representative on the ground Dr Roger Jean-Charles immensely.

Made link with medical director for LDS Charities. Offered them assistance with our knowledge of pockets of need for medical team deployment. Dave offered our trucks to bring in the load of relief supplies brought in yesterday on our Airline Ambassadors partnering with United charter flight to our house/command center to get them off the airport and keep them from going into the black hole of 'unclaimed supplies'. Found out that they are also adopting CDTI hospital to help them keep U.S. medical personnel and supplies coming (my principal project since I arrived in Haiti).

What a relief to hear that such a large (we're talking MEGA-large) NGO is recognizing this state-of-the-art hospital for the resource it is. I have great faith in LDS charities for the mammoth work that they do in the world of humanitarian aid. They are probably the most highly respected NGO for their reliability from what I have heard from others and from Dave.

Dr Jim

The "Event"

My medical group has now teamed up with groups that provides all various needs. One group cooks and serves food, one group of contractors and engineers covers construction and rebuilding, and my team provides a medical care and public health clinic. Together, we are trying to serve the Haitian people and enable them to rebuild from the earthquake (or, as they refer to it, "the event"...no one wants any reminder of the earthquake).

Now that the initial help is filtering out. We are now left fighting old fractures, infection, and severe malnutrition...the worst cases imaginable.

Right now, my time is divided between the clinic and anesthesia at the hospital at night. The public health clinic I worked at today saw over 400 people between
about 7 doctors. Many of these people have never received medical care in their life,
so they are so very appreciate of anything. I started an IV on a 2 month old that was terribly dehydrated and took her over to the hospital.

Gotta go. Internet is running out.

Emily

Last Day in Haiti

Today we got to see Jacque Edouard Alexis, the former Prime Minister. His university, Quisqueya, the best in Haiti, was completely flattened by the quake. 22 people were killed, including the vice-chancellor. Mr. Alexis said that it was lucky that it was at a time when most people were gone. There was a group of educators in front of his house this morning sitting on chairs having a meeting about getting schools started again.

We then went to he and his wife Frederika's old residence, which is where she has moved her woman's center, which was also flattened. She was in the building at the time, but survived. We introduced her to Dr. Bob Hilgers, a gynecological oncologist from Louisville, KY. He was planning to come here with me before the quake hit to meet her and discuss starting a cervical cancer screening pilot project in her woman's center there. Bob is so keen on getting this going in Haiti that he came down anyway to join me here. He presented his recommendations to she and Michelle, who runs the center for her.

The program in Gonaives will be a trial. If it goes well, Bob thinks in about a year it can be started in other cities in Haiti. Bob will come down personally with others of our team to help train the midwives and nurses. He suggests starting with three. He said "this needs to be a woman's project, carried out by women for women in order for it to be successful".

From Kentucky, Dr Hilgers can read the digital camera pictures of the cervixes to advise who to treat and who not to. The women were very excited. I think it gave them hope today to have him paint such a positive picture of something in the future for Haiti to get their minds off the despair at hand for a minute.

Another 16 folks came in from Chicago today, one Orthopedic surgeon, 11 fire-fighters from Denver, 2 providers from Ohio and 2 from Pennsylvania. We organized them into 4 outreach teams and they spent the afternoon at our 'command house' going through the supplies we scored at the USAID warehouse the other day putting it into kits for them to work from. We plan to deploy them tomorrow to new sites around the city.

Interestingly, the two from Ohio had a contact in Mirebalais (up in the mountains toward the central plateau). They called him (he is a minister there) when they got here and he came down to PAP to talk to them about whether they might want to come there. It turns out that their little church clinic has 56 refugees from here to take care of. They had a doctor from Ohio who went back yesterday. I asked him if he would like us to send one our teams there for the week. He was quite pleased. They will be getting more doctors on Monday, but this will cover them over this weekend. A new partnership has been forged. The two from Ohio went with him along with two of the Denver fire-fighters this afternoon. We have fielded our first team outside the city.

I turned over my Airline Ambassador team managing duties to Greg Gourgue and Dave Rivard tonight.

Tomorrow I will return on the United flight bringing in our next group of 17 doctors and nurses and return to Chicago. Hopefully home Sunday.

More from there...

Jim Smith

Take nothing for Granted...

Conditions are worse than imaginable. The entire city is in ruins. The streets are lined with make-shift tents. Even families with houses that still stand choose to live in the streets for fear of after-shocks. Recently orphaned children sit blank-stared
on sidewalks just lost.

As we drove to the hospital, the smells are overwhelming. Many bodies remain trapped under rubble...it has now been over 2 weeks.

My first night, I was woken up to someone from the hospital across the street calling for the "blonde-hair anesthesia". There are two anesthetists (myself included) in our team. I grabbed my new-found CRNA friend and ran next door. There was a stat c-section at the hospital. The conditions are unbelievable. Make-shift ORs with out-dated drugs that I have only read about. But we have an anesthesia machine!

This morning I worked in a public health clinic. 6 of us assessed over 250 Haitian men, women and children. Later in the afternoon I went back to the hospital to help with anesthesia.

Tomorrow more surgeries.

Take nothing for granted.

Emily Zimmerman

Tired...but another medical team on the way

Very tired tonight. This will be short. Helped Dr Roger get his report done for the Minister of Health today. He did a nice job of describing the situation at CDTI hospital (yesterday's blog) to the minister, and suggesting a good option: Government provides assistance to CDTI which in turn creates a public wing for patients who cannot pay.

Got to have a real meal up at Roger's house while we worked on the report. Haitian food is good.

Downloaded the manifest for tomorrow's United Airlines flight in. Will be picking up 23 people. This time NO surgeons. All E.R. physicians, Internal Medicine, Family Practice, Pediatricians, Tropical medicine specialists, a PA, EMTs and paramedics, 3 logistics people, and a DENTIST! (I've been trying to get a dentist to come with us to Gonaives for the last 5 years).

I think we will be forming 4 or 5 mobile outreach medical teams tomorrow.

Jim Smith

Ernst Leo

A very gentle, eloquent man. He lost his wife of 10 years, his 5 year old daughter. His 7 year old daughter, Christine (pictured with Ernst), lost her right arm. She says she is eager to get back to school and is practicing writing with her left hand.

I was handing out bottles of water to the patients and families in a ward at the General Hospital of Port au Prince, Haiti. Ernst thanked me for the aid that we brought and for coming to help him and his people. I replied that it was a privilege to be there and added that my husband wasn't really happy that I came, that he was kind of upset because he felt it was so dangerous to be there with the aftershocks.

"Do you mean that you sacrificed your marriage to come and help me and our people?"

"Well, I hope not . . ."

We continued to chat for a while and then I left.

A little while later Ernst came looking for me with a letter in hand:

"Dear Mr. - I say you to thank you, because your wife has give me water me and family, and support me with generous. You have someone special. Thank you, Ernst Leo"

Deborah Quigley

Focusing...

Our work in Haiti is now so overwhelming we have difficulty fully taking it in. This is unlike any disaster we have yet encountered and will require the focus of Airline Ambassadors for a very long time to come.

We have now set up a command center and have two houses, two vehicles and three warehouses. We will need volunteers for the next year at intervals of 1 week, 2 weeks or 1 month at a time.

Currently our main focus is to leverage the airline industry to continue to support humanitarian relief deliveries after the earthquake becomes old news. So far we only have praise for the airlines, especially United, American and JetBlue, who have brought in huge amounts of aid on their relief flights. Last night at midnight we went to pick up more aid from the American Airlines warehouse, and Art Torno, the AA General Manager at Port-au-Prince who has been offloading cargo from any plane that comes in, was sleeping in the office. The whole AA ground staff here has been amazing.

White dresses are dancing in the moonlight as I write this. Male and female voices singing with an infectiously deep emotion. Never have I seen a whole culture with a spirituality so integrated, so inbred - and where there is such need.

It is so inspiring how everyone is coming together, but, again, the overall relief effort seems overwhelming. It will take all our love, wisdom and patience to put everything together and build a new Haiti.


Nancy

AAI Status Report

At this point, we are one of the very, very few NGOs that has flown approximately 12 planes into the island, and all but one successfully touched down into Port au Prince, with another one getting diverted to Santo Domingo which Aino Jakobsen, our DR Country Coordinator, quickly transported over to PAP.

We have successfully set up an infrastructure to fly planes in for free or at cost, receive the aid at arrival, place it into trucks, ensure an abundance of fuel (key) and then make certain that it gets delivered to the local points of dire need.

Right now, we have limited need for storage because we are literally consuming 100% of the aid within 12 hours of delivery. Our doctors are performing an amputation an hour, and often it is without anesthetics. I’ve seen people die and cannot share those pictures in a public forum.

A lot of the aid, sadly, is just sitting on the airport. There are many magnanimous supplier donors but are flying aid but without thought as to what happens when they land into PAP. We typically claim such aid if it is untouched for 48 hours. At this point, SouthCom who has taken over the airport has asked us to assist in managing HAD (humanitarian aid distribution) operations for them. I didn’t see many people from the U.S. in the hardest hit areas, except for Doctors without Borders.

Aid of some other NGOs is being sold on the black market. We’ve set up a pretty scary private security detail of U.S. soldiers of Haitian descent who have taken leave to help AAI. We are in the process of trying to get them paid leave. Fuel and electricity is like gold so with each increasing day the level of unrest and knowledge of what we are doing is growing. That being said, the locals are coming to our side and helping. It is amazing to see people who themselves are in such need but decide to place others ahead of themselves. The human heart is strong and pure and it takes events like this to bring out the goodness in people, which we often don’t read in the press or see on the news.

I like being stateside, but I really needed to assess things first with my own eyes and confirm that the people we found both here and down there are those we can trust and have the competency and strength. I needed to formally shake hands with key people of the Haitian government. We are one of the only ones that have been able to form a bridge across both parties.

As I type, our team is in the middle of distributing 13,500 pounds of nutrition bars and 6,000 pounds of water in the dark, along with aid from Americares. People are gracious and thankful. Unfortunately, we still have to pace up and down with shotguns, but we’ve ordered our men to stand down. No more lives should be taken.

Daniel Sheth

A Birthday Gift

Today was Nancy's birthday, but there was no celebration in this inferno. A strong early morning aftershock drove people in a panic out of the hospital we were in. It was a sight we'll never forget: amputees desperately dragging themselves away from the building, mothers who had given birth under flashlight the night before clutching their newborns.

Yet the day unexpectedly brightened when some street kids we met gave Nancy the best present ever. When they found out it was her birthday one of them took off his necklace and put it around her neck, while another gave her his bracelet.

We remember today the death of friends and colleagues among whom were Archbishop Joseph Serge Miot whose home we had stayed in two weeks prior to the earthquake, when Airline Ambassador's CASA Corps earthquake preparedness building project was in negotiations. (CASA was conceived by the international community after the devastating earthquake in El Salvador in 2001 as an effort to build earthquake-resistant housing in developing nations susceptible to earth tremors).

A terrible irony as his home collapsed upon him only days after we had discussed the dangers of such buildings.

Our global community must get serious about the complete and utter destruction of this nation. Our message to the media when they say “Where is the Haitian government?” is that its members are either under the rubble, or attending to family members who were. They have a hard enough time finding drinking water for themselves, let alone resume any form of functional governance. Nancy and Dave Rivard

First Report from Port-au-Prince

The situation here is unimaginable. The country is in a state of total collapse. The catastrophe is so enormous that, a full week after the earthquake, even the combined resources of the international community have barely made a dent. It is only the US Army Southern Command that has any organization, but it is stretched to it's very limits.

The biggest logistical problem is getting aid to the people that need it. After we had deposited our aid from LDS Charities at its destination we passed by a hospital and, among the hundreds of people lying in the grass, saw two people die of septicemia because of a lack of simple medicines. Tetanus was taking hold of many others. We also witnessed amputations without anesthetics. We were so appalled we rushed back to the airstrip and grabbed some aid that an NGO had deposited there days before, claimed it as our own, and took it back to the hospital. The overworked doctors were ecstatic.

Dogs are tearing at the thousands of rotting corpses in the streets with the stench so dreadful that desperate inhabitants are using precious gasoline (now going for $100 a gallon) and old tires to burn them. There's no food, not even for the likes of us.

Not even Hollywood could reproduce a horror show such as the one we experienced today. It will remain with us for the rest of our lives.

Nancy and Dave Rivard

Homeless Voice Pulls Out all the Stops

When news of the January 12th earthquake first became public, the office of Airline Ambassadors turned into a frenzy of activity. Due to their recent visit to Haiti and their impending project to facilitate the implementation of proposed building codes, the news of the earthquake and its destruction came as an especial blow to AAI founders, Dave and Nancy Rivard.

Without commercial airlines flying into Haiti and with no knowledge of the level of damage to the roads from the Dominican Republic, the only option was to charter aircraft at a cost to the small non-profit of $34,000 one way from Miami to Port-au-Prince.

Unsure of where the funds would come from, but confident that the public would hear the call and respond, Airline Ambassadors decided to go ahead and charter the large aircraft. In Miami, Nancy and Dave were greeted with a welcome and surprising gift. They were approached by Sean Cononie, the head of a local homeless group called Homeless Voice. Over the previous three days members of the group – knowledgeable of what homelessness really means - had and managed to raise a phenomenal $16,000 towards the cost of filling the aircraft with food and water for the hundreds of thousands put out onto the street by the earthquake.

Not content with raising such an incredible sum, members of Homeless Voice also volunteered to load the airplane with ten tons of donated items destined for the people of Haiti.

Amidst so much misery came such selfless dedication from among the most marginalized of our own society.

Getting Back Home from Haiti

Getting worried that a city with no food, water, electricity or fuel for public consumption could ultimately lead to chaos.

Got a motorcycle to get me to the border. I had to pay $100 USD.

Beautiful drive so different than Port au Prince, greenery, peacefulness, nice people.

But the need for gas still exists so we stopped to fill up gas for $10.00 per gallon!

Bribed someone to get me through the border quickly given the ridiculously long line of Haitians fleeing.

Got a cheap scooter from someone to get me to Jimani.

Found out all the buses are gone as they don't drive in the dark for safety reasons.

$300 for a car seemed the universal cab price to get to Santo Domingo airport.

Ultimately got it down to $200 where I don't pay for gas. As a requirement, I have to agree to take his friend to the hospital who threw out his back.

The car has 333,370 kilometers on it!!!!!

Learned that the the victim didn't have a back problem but a broken hip.

Car was too small. Located a bigger one and got her to the hospital while trying to administer what seemed like ineffective painkillers during the journey.

Stopped by Dominican army for not having a Haitian entry stamp. Tried explaining there are no customs or stamps. About to get detained, I called Ambassador Francis Lorenzo and he saved me!

It is nice to be out of PAP, but time to get back to work bringing more aid back into the country. I toured so many areas and we are - at least so far - the only NGO with any substantial presence in hard hit residential areas. I couldn't find any other non-profit group!

Daniel Sheth

Haiti: "Airline Ambassadors was the ONLY NGO today with a destination for its aid"

Morning and Day:

With the magnificent help of volunteers from Voices for Homeless we literally stuffed the entire plane with medical supplies and medicine. It was a lot of manual labor but we got EVERYTHING on the plane with the 60 Haitian-American doctors, surgeons and nurses.

We were told when in the sky that the runway at Port-au-Prince was filled with planes unable to move and were getting diverted. However, we had our paperwork, slot number and a lot of divine intervention and they cleared us for landing. The entire plane sang and prayed in Creole.

Late afternoon:

We touched down and played the role of baggage service unloading all the aid. We were the ONLY NGO today that had destinations for this aid and didn't leave it littered at the airport. Otherwise, as one worker told me, there is no organization and tons of aid is just lying at the edge of the airport with no home. They were very happy we didn't have that problem.

In addition, all other planes are C130s there. Pretty amazing we got three of our own to touch down today unscathed.

Night:

I made it work at the house for James and his crew of five doctors by moving myself and my team out to this run down but amazing place with the people. I will rendezvous with them in the morning. In the meantime, I will sleep and just clutch onto my passport, wallet and money listening to the beating drums, songs and prayers.

Everyone is sleeping in the streets, afraid to go into houses in case of more tremors. People are up all night singing and praying.

No rational adult should come here. Total destruction. Dead bodies laying on the streets where people are also sleeping. Tall buildings have collapsed except for the unoccupied homes that Aristide built.

We also started the process of buying fuel and a generator on the black market.

Tomorrow morning:

Having breakfast with Dr. Roger Jean Charles, our liaison here and will start walking through the medical facilities and passing out more aid. The doctors are coming with me and I will place the surgeons in under-served areas (Carrefour). I have gotten a driver and translator for the Oprah team who are in search of a woman who lost her home and family but still has her children and is living on the street. We already identified the place which I just visited. For Eric, I have identified drop zones and barren land whose landowners I have already met so he can begin planning his reconstruction project. All are very grateful.

The airport is now shut down for four days to commercial flights so am trying to make my way back to the DR but nobody has enough fuel.

Trying to go to sleep now where everyone is chanting "Jesus is God".

Daniel

Haiti: Turning Compassion into Action

It is only today, five days after Haiti's catastrophe, that we find the time to quickly dash off a few lines about Airline Ambassador's response.

We aren't beginners at shipping aid to Haiti - in fact the country was the first we supplied after we began operations back in the early 1990s - but the magnitude of the disaster has given us four days of round the clock labor before we were able to charter an aircraft out today with money we raised from our members. The plane was filled with 10,000 lbs of food and 60 medical personnel - more than half whom are Haitian-Americans from all over the United States.

They are going to a country that is in a true state of utter collapse. In many places there is no food, water, electricity, fuel, sewage disposal, communications of any kind, medical care, system to dispose of the dead and public order. Most people are sleeping on the street. As the days wear on the desperation of those trapped in this apocalyptic nightmare becomes ever more apparent.

AAI has also managed to fill three other aircraft with medicines and food aid and has been given space on United Airlines mercy flights departing out of Chicago on a regular basis.

The generosity of our members - especially the remarkable contribution of Voices for Homeless - enabled us to pay for today's flight in only 48 hours with more flights to come.

LDS Charities have donated huge amounts of food for us to transport. Flight Attendant Medical Research Institute (FAMRI) donated money for fuel that allowed us to do all this, and the Community Voices for the Homeless donated half of today's AAI charter aircraft expenses. Homeless people helped load the airplane to maximum capacity.

There was a moment when today's charter was told it would have to land in the Dominican Republic but, as passenger Daniel (who is on our Board) said, "we had all of our paperwork and the whole crew and passengers started singing in Creole and praying and ... we landed in Port-au-Prince! Thank you Nancy and Dave for everything. Your clearance and our reputation with SouthCom helped along with divine intervention. I am in tears (and you know I am a tough guy!)"

Nancy & Dave Rivard

Airline Ambassador Member Featured in People Magazine

Delta Airlines flight attendant Robin Schmidt, who is a very active member of Airline Ambassadors, recently returned from a trip to visit wounded U.S. troops at the Landstuhl Medical Center in Germany (see her blog entries below).

People Magazine caught up with Robin and featured her in their "Heroes Among Us" section. She brings two blank books on each flight to pass around among passengers to address supportive comments to individual soldiers. She expects to be back at Landstuhl in February with more cards and letters of gratitude to distribute.