Haiti Mission Project
Loma Linda University School of Medicine Class of 2010
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We Made it!
Posted on January 19th, 2010 No commentsWave one of the LLU team is on the ground in Port-au-Prince Haiti. Once we are at Hopital Adventiste d’Haiti and I am able to establish a connection I will post more details. Thank you all for your prayers!
Team L - R:
Jeff Douglass Cure Intl., Dave Mitchell SOS Children's Villages, Dr. Mike Fishell LLU , Andrew Haglund LLU, Dr. Brad Walter Cure Intl., Chris Vannucci LLU. Many thanks to Hop-A-Jet and all those who provided the very nice ride from Florida to Haiti, our last luxury for a while. -
Wheels up at 0800 1/19
Posted on January 18th, 2010 No commentsQuick update...
Marni Nelson reports significant relief got to Scott on Saturday.
Lew Zirkle and his Ortho surgical team should have arrived in PaP last night.
The LLU team has been joined by an Orthopedic Surgeon friend of Scott's, Dr. Brad Walter who has Haiti experience and we are guarenteed to fly in on the Tuesday 8:00AM charter relief flight direct to PaP. -
Three members of LLU’s Team are on their way
Posted on January 17th, 2010 No commentsSorry for the late update to the blog but I’ve been a little busy today finishing up logistics for the team, packing 100+ lbs of surgical gear and packing my personal goods for a trip into a very hostile environment. I am writing this from a terminal in LAX as I wait for a red-eye flight to Ft. Lauderdale, FL. In FLF I will join Mike Fischell (Anesthesiologist) and Christopher Vannnucci (Physician Assistant) both flying in from Las Vegas. We are scheduled to fly from FLF direct to PaP on a donated charter relief flight at 1:00PM eastern, but we’ve heard they are starting to limit even those previously “approved” charter flights. If we don’t fly tomorrow we are guaranteed on a Tuesday flight. The second part of the team will come in on similar fights on Wed or Thurs.
While I have had no direct communication with Scott since 5 AM yesterday morning I did speak several times with Marni. She has also had very limited contact with Scott but indicates that the supplies and team that arrived yesterday did get to him and provided some level of relief to he and his exhausted team.
Fund Raising update:
The LLU Haiti Relief fund has received over $35K since Thursday Jan 14th. We hear there is significantly more in the pipeline. THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH and please keep the dollars flowing. Just so you all know, those dollars will go directly to the Haitian people and Hopital Adventiste d’Haiti. Your dollars are NOT funding travel costs or logistics, those costs are being absorbed by LLU, GHI, and AHI. Click here to donate now. -
WOW great fund raising news
Posted on January 16th, 2010 No commentsJust in...
The LLU Haiti relief fund has brought in more than $25,000 in just 48 hours. This is great but we need those donations to keep flowing. LLU is committed to this project for the long haul which will take dollars. A reminder that these dollars go directly to support Hopital Adventiste d’Haiti in Port-au-Prince for on going medical relief efforts. Please continue to promote the link at www.llu.edu or direct to the LLU Haiti relief page. -
LLU Surgical team heading to Haiti
Posted on January 16th, 2010 No comments1/16/2010 6:00PM PSTChristopher Jobe, MD Orthopedic SurgeonDuWayne Carlson, MD Orthopedic SurgeonMichael Fishell MD AnesthesiologistChristopher Vannucci Physician AssistantAndrew Haglund LLU GIS Specialist, Logistics & CommunicationsMelanie Jobe LLU Logistics & Language (French)The bulk of this team will fly out of Ft. Lauderdale Florida on a shared charter relief flight with partner organization Cure International and should arrive in PaP on Monday night. The second wave should arrive late Wednesday. The team will be carrying with them as many surgical supplies as allowed by the charter company. Scott has been instrumental is identifying exact supplies needed based on the cases he is dealing with. This includes surgical saws & drills, medical forms, and disposables.Good NewsUpdate from Scott’s assistant in the D.R. reports that 4 planes worth of medical supplies and a surgical team has successfully landed in PaP and are on trucks headed to Scott.News coverage of Scott at Hopital Adventiste d’Haiti -
Early morning report from Dr. Nelson
Posted on January 16th, 2010 No comments1/16/2010 5:15AM PST
Scott reports this morning that he worked most of the night fighting with gangrene and septicemia and much of his work unfortunately was amputations rather than stabilizations. He remains upbeat and is as focused as ever on the mission ahead of him. He is encouraged to hear that reinforcements from LLU and the orthopedic community will be arriving shortly. He was also thrilled to hear that the LLU community was seeing his images and donating via the LLU Haiti relief fund.
For those readers who have been to the Hopital Adventiste d’Haiti, Scott asked me to relay a sad story. The son of the woman in the yellow dress was sadly crushed to death. He apparently was trapped but alive for about 48 hours and the woman in the yellow dress was able to be with him most of that time. During the recovery effort to free him, a crane broke and dropped a large concrete slab crushing him. Scott said that while she was clearly still grieving the woman in the yellow dress was back on duty at Hopital Adventiste d’Haiti. -
Dr. Nelson operating at the SDA hospital
Posted on January 15th, 2010 No comments1/15/2010 5:45PM PST
OUTSTANDING NEWS
Just talked with Scott. He made it to Hopital Adventiste d’Haiti in Port-au-Prince today and has started operating. The hospital is in as good or better condition than any other of the half a dozen hospitals he has visited in PaP thus far. Upon arrival he was greeted by Dr. Archer and immediately performed a life-saving amputation. Although the hospital is structurally sound, the Haitians are reluctant to enter and thus an operating suite has been established in the parking lot under a blue tarp. Scott indicates that people are already starting to change their willingness to enter the building and is hopeful they can start operations inside soon. Scott indicates there are weeks worth of orthopedic surgical cases to be done and are literally lying in the streets. He reiterated his statement that he believes he is one of the only surgical teams operating in PaP and will continue to do so until reinforcements arrive.
Dr. Nelson and Dr. Archer send their greetings to the entire SDA church, the LLU community at large and a special greeting to the LLUSM 2010 class. Aside from PRAYER the major request at this time is for donations to go to the
LLU Haiti relief fund.
The road from downtown PaP to diquini where Hopital Adventiste d’Haiti is located
Hopital Adventiste d’Haiti with outdoor operating room
Dr's Archer & Nelson stop to pray in the outdoor O.R. prior to surgery
Satellite imagery acquired 1/14/2010 of Hopital Adventiste d’Haiti with outdoor O.R. visible (blue tarp)
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Dr. Scott Nelson is in Port-au-Prince…
Posted on January 15th, 2010 No commentsLoma Linda University School of Medicine graduate Dr. Scott Nelson a pediatric orthopedic surgeon is on the ground and already working in Port-au-Prince Haiti (PaP). Within moments after the shaking stopped Scott went to work trying to secure a means of transportation for he and his surgical team to get from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic to PaP. I've been on the phone with both he and his wife Marni no less than 20 times and have lost count of the emails in the last 48 hours as we have tried to establish the condition of the SDA hospital and how LLU could support him in PaP.
We (LLU) received post quake satellite imagery late on Wednesday 1/13 which was acquired earlier in the day. After analysis of the imagery it appeared that the SDA facilities survived and were already functioning as a trauma center. Based on that information Scott chartered a private plane to fly he and his team to PaP. Early this morning (1/14) Scott called to say that the PaP airport had been closed to incoming flights but that there was still a chance of getting in and he was going to try. Around noon, while in a Haiti response meeting with Dr. Hart and other LLU VP's my cell rang, it was Scott, in the plane, ready to take off, still not knowing if he would be able to land in PaP. Around 3:30PM I got a call from Marni, the pilot had called her to tell her that they had made it and Scott and team were there and on their way to the hospital. I have just received the following update from Scott:
1/14/2010 7:30PM PST
Hello All,
We were fortunately able to make a landing after circling PAP airport for one hour. They gave our pilot 3 minutes of time to stay on the ground. We were met by a team of people who were waiting for our plane and had good vehicles to take us to assess a couple of hospitals. Most of our equipment was placed on another plane which did not make it today. We found parking lots full of fractures, open wounds, traumatic amputations. The damages are every bit as bad as seen on CNN. Dead bodies are laying on the sidewalks in many places, some have been collected by trucks.
The first hospital we visited was not equipped to do orthopaedic surgery even under normal conditions. We then went to Hopital du la Communitie Haitien a 75 bed community hospital in Freres near Delma. There are many orthopaedic cases filling the parking lot and patio as everyone is too scared to be inside a building. One 3 year old child was about to get his arm amputated by an opthamologist and she was relieved to turn the case over to me. The family was even more relieved to know that we could save the arm. Tomorrow we will do further surgery on him and others. The hospital is not damaged and they have power and running water available. There are 2 OR's that are quite nice. We were not able to visit Hopital Adventiste D'Haiti, but we will try to assess the situation there tomorrow as well as some other locations. We plan to begin operating at the Hopital du la Communitie tomorrow when our equipment arrives. Meantime we will try to team up with some of the rescue teams and stay in touch with the media.
To all those interested volunteers who want to pack goods and work - I do not yet have much of a needs list, but will say that there are orthopaedic injuries of all types and do not hesitate to mobilize your resources. I am trying to identify a several places with at least some minimal infrastructure where we can safely treat people. More soon.
We are being well taken care of.
Scott
Clearly God's hand has been with Scott to get him where he is. Scott has operated in Haiti more than 20 times over the past 5 years and I believe there are very few people better suited to the task he has before him. Clearly he is already saving limbs and lives. Please pray for Scott's continued success and safety and please consider the links below. I will try to keep you up to date as Scott sends updates.
LLU has setup a special fund specifically where donations can be made to support the hospital and Scott’s work:
http://www.llu.edu/news/articles/2010/haiti.page
First post quake satellite imagery acquired 10:30AM 1/13/2010 The imagery of the hospital shows what appear to be an intact structure and a significantly higher number of cars than usual which we believe to be a sign that the hospital is functional. We also consider the lack of people camped out on the surrounding lawns a good sign of the hospitals functionality. The University open areas are clearly being used as a staging area and the buildings look reasonably intact.Hopital Adventiste D'Haiti
Universite Adventiste d’Haiti
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