by the grace of God I live

Last Sunday after lunch, my friend Nick and I took a 40 min journey to the beach at Port Salut, Haiti for a little R&R. We enjoyed the sun and the warm Caribbean Sea and left to go home just before the sun sunk below the mountains. We made it through the mountain passes and the views were breathtaking. From time to time, we chatted over the sound of loud wind blowing past our ears as the motorcycle sped on. On the road below the mountains, as we neared Les Cayes and home, we passed a few small towns where people hung out by the side of the roads watching cock fights and celebrating saints days.

On a long straightaway we saw another motorcyclist pull out slowly on the right. Another man ran to catch up to the slow moving vehicle and tried to hop on the back. The rest happened instantaneously: Nick moved to the left of the road to avoid the slower bike. The slower bike popped a wheely and lost control, veering further and further left. Suddenly, impact.

The noise was metal clashing together and human bodies hitting the ground with force. I remember falling and feeling my head bounce twice as Nick and our bike fell on top of me and the other bike skidded over us and into the ditch. Nick peeled himself off the pavement and pulled the bike off me. I reached for my helmet and frantically tugged it off my head. Nick helped me up and I felt an incredible pain shoot through my whole body. Once we dragged ourselves to the side of the road I lay down and Nick played crowd control while simultaneously trying to call everyone we knew for help. After 30 minutes, some of our friends showed up.

At the first hospital we went to, Haitians lay dying on every bed in the ER and crowds hovered near the entrances. A Cuban doctor felt my body to make sure nothing was broken, glanced at the road burns and cuts covering my legs and arms, asked how I felt. When I rather shrieked that I couldn't see or hear and I was going to throw up, he ordered some drugs be brought from the dispensary and told me to lie down.

A large, frazzled nurse sutured Nick's elbow in the doorframe of the entrance while 40 passersby looked on. A doctor guided me to a hallway by the records room and instructed me to lie down on a dirty, dusty plastic mat, "it's the best we can offer." I set my head on a friends lap and a few moments later, a mouse scuttled past my toes. When I shrieked, a few on-looking women giggled. The man standing outside gazing in at me through the glass door smiled.

After a half hour or more, my friends returned from the dispensary with a syringe, painkiller and an IV. As soon as the nurse had administered the shot and hooked up the IV, I begged my friends to take me out of there. One grabbed me my under my "good" arm, another grabbed the drip bag; nurse “Ratchet” wasn't going to get another rough go at scraping my wounds clean.
Alex, Nick’s roommate, works for the UN and is a trained EMT. He did his best to clean my wounds when we got home. The IV drip ran out, I took some oxycodone and went to bed. The next morning we got a lift from a UN friend to their southern base in Cayes and saw the medical director there. After taking another go at cleaning my wounds, she instructed us to go to Port au Prince to seek further medical help. She said the UN could provide transport there.

So, I had my first ride in a helicopter ride. We traveled with some of our UN friends that we met with at the beach on Sunday afternoon.
After some planes, trains (not really) and automobiles, we arrived at the best hospital in Haiti: Canopé Vert. To make a long story (a 4 day and 3 night story) short, we had an amazing doctor who fixed us up well. Except for Nick, who needed stitches on his elbow, all the wounds were superficial. More reflections on the experience and conditions in Haitian medical facilities to come but for now, know that we are fine and will continue our work in Haiti tomorrow, after a five day hiatus. Come next week I’ll be bandage free and ready to rock.