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David Darg is the International director of Operation Blessing. I have had the pleasure of working closley with David Darg on the ground in Haiti. David,myself and Bryn Mooser from APJNOW.org tackeled a flooded village area of Haiti where 8 people where kiled by fast moving waters just two days ago(this will be an ireport soon).David was one of the first responders to the Cholera outbreak at St. Marc hospital.... The following is what David had to say
We woke to some disturbing news today. Our friends at Partners in
Health emailed to say that there were people arriving at St. Marc
hospital in droves, sick with diarrhea and that people were dying from
dehydration at an alarming rate. The question was clear, could
Operation Blessing mobilize to provide clean water to an area
suspected of having Haiti’s first major cholera outbreak in decades.
Our staff immediately began loading our trucks with equipment and
supplies, just two days ago we responded to emergency flooding near
Leogane so the drill was fresh in our minds. During the 2 hour drive
to St. Marc the details began to emerge of what was unfolding in the
region. Email traffic on my phone was showing the death toll climbing
steadily while there was still speculation as to what was causing the
sickness. Many of us suspected Cholera but some of our Haitian staff
had heard rumors on the radio that villagers had been made sick
through contaminated sea food. There was definitely an air of nervous
tension amongst the staff.
We arrived at St Marc hospital to a horror scene. I had to fight my
way though the gate as a huge crowd of worried relatives stood outside
while others were screaming for access as they carried dying relatives
into the compound. The inside of the courtyard was lined with
patients hooked up to IV drips. It had just rained and there were
people lying on soggy sheets on the ground half soaked with rain, half
soaked with feces. Children were screaming and writhing in agony,
others were motionless with their eyes rolled into the back of their
heads as doctors and nursing staff searched desperately for a vein to
give them an IV. The hospital was overwhelmed, caught suddenly by one
of the fastest killers there is, Cholera (still to be confirmed).
Our friend, Cate Oswald, from Partners In Health came out from one of
the triage tents clutching a hand drawn map. It showed the local
river and had the names of a few communities where the patients had
been coming from. Cate and some PIH staff loaded into a vehicle and
led us into the countryside to find the source of the epidemic.
Soon we were heading down narrow dirt roads with rice paddies and
canals on either side. The crisis had actually started yesterday but
had only really come to light last night when doctors realized it was
getting serious. By then the villagers had heard of the deaths and
word spread quickly not to drink water from the river. Most people
had stopped drinking the river water and had gone thirsty for hours.
The roads were lined with villagers holding buckets, begging for
water. Some larger groups of villagers had set up road blocks and our
convoy was forced to stop and explain that we didn’t have water, only
equipment to purify water and we were only heading to the source of
the problem. The villagers reluctantly let us pass and we pressed on.
People were constantly trying to flag us down and pointing to sick
friends and relatives. One group forced us to stop and had a girl
seriously close to death. The PIH staff quickly started her on an IV
and placed her in their vehicle. Her mother, clutching another baby,
explained that her husband had died yesterday and asked us to save her
daughter; Cate and the PIH staff did save her.
We arrived at the place where many of the patients had originated
from, a small dusty community called Babou La Port. The Operation
Blessing team immediately went into action setting up our water
purification system. The key to the unit is that it filters and
chlorinates, which ensures that any bacteria or diseases are killed in
the water. As we worked the PIH team asked the community to split
into two groups, those who felt ok and those who felt sick. The huge
group of people began to split with sick villagers of all ages
congregating under the shade of some large trees.
The medical staff placed IV’s in some critical patients. One of them,
a boy named Frantz, was bought to us by his grandmother. He was weak
and vomiting. His grandmother was frail and could only point to the
river when we asked her how long Frantz had been ill. The unfortunate
reality in this part of the world is that diarrhea is a common and
frequent problem. But a villager with Cholera might lay down upon
feeling ill expecting to get better as they often do, and be dead
within hours.
Convoys of trucks plastered with the posters of various presidential
candidates paraded on the dirt roads in the area. Many of the
candidates saw this as an opportunity to campaign. They were tossing
out small plastic bags of water to the desperate crowds, there were
fights for the water and one man was crushed under one of their trucks
in the scuffle.
Our filtration unit fired up and word spread quickly that there was
water available. Soon a sea of multi colored buckets surrounded us.
Villagers were appearing from every direction desperate to get
drinking water. The tap stand was quickly surrounded and water
flowed. There were no cheers and little laughter; most of the
villagers there were stunned, afraid and weak. They were just
relieved to have access to water. Every so often a villager would
thank us in a gentle voice.
The system kept pumping clean water and night began to set in. I
asked our Haitian staff if any of them would be willing to stay with
the system overnight and keep it operating. It was a daunting
challenge, to stay awake surrounded by deadly disease and desperate
villagers but the staff stepped up to the challenge. Tonight there are
OB Haiti staff members operating the water system giving life saving
water to thousands and thousands of people in the midst of a horrific
epidemic.
Confident that the system was in good hands we set back to St Marc.
Back at the hospital in St Marc not much had changed, other than the
death toll. As I write this the confirmed death toll is 135 and
rising with thousands more infected. Tonight there were still
patients being carried into the hospital close to death. Now however
the cries of the mothers are louder and there were even more people at
the gates desperate to hear news of their loved ones. The hospital is
struggling to cope with such a sudden influx of patients especially
considering that it is still recuperating from the January earthquake.
The last time I saw anything like this was a cholera outbreak in Bihar
India in 2007. Now Cholera seems to have flared in Haiti to compound
the misery of the earthquake and floods. The scenes I saw at St Marc
reminded me of Port Au Prince after the earthquake: patients lying in
the streets, doctors struggling to cope, mass hysteria and fatigue.
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