Emergency Prayers Needed!!!

I received this email late last night from on of our contacts for Mission of Hope. This letter was forwarded to us from Dr. Cheryl, the Medical Coordinator for the clinic at MOH. Tim and I got to know Cheryl well during our week in Haiti and I have never met a more dedicated person in my life. Please take 5 minutes to read her update. It will help give you a picture of what Mission of Hope is doing in Haiti and how you can pray for them. I have inserted a few of our pictures from Haiti to help with the mental pictures as you read...

"Ok, so Dr Craig (ortho surgeon) left Wednesday. Then all the fun began. It started Thursday with a mass trauma bus tap tap accident that brought in approximately 20 people with multiple traumas. We had many cases for Dr. Craig :) It was during the afternoon so it was nice to have the help of our Haitian staff and daylight unlike the earthquake night.

In the end we had correctly diagnosed 7 pelvic fractures even 2 ramus fractures (with no diagnostic tools) and 3 other ortho fractures (diagnosed by c-arm) that were a mid shaft humerus, a humeral head, and a compound tib fib and many other cuts and scrapes. We found ourselves transferring to General Hospital and University of Miami cases that they would usually be sending to us on ortho weeks. We had everything taken care of in about 5 hours. The team did amazing and there were a lot of high 5's when we had the x-rayed confirmed diagnoses the next day. 

Then came today.....oh today. 

Ok so only 3 days later, just as I was about to dose off for my Sunday afternoon snooze, I get a call from Lindsay saying they are bringing in another accident, she knew nothing else but it either had American's bringing them in, or American's had something to do with it. 

I got to the clinic as the first tap tap arrived. This one was worse with approx 20 people again both American and Haitian injured. A young mission team working with a group in this area of Haiti had their truck overturn on a mountain road close by. We had both white and black, coming in on multiple tap taps, one after the other with large trauma. Almost the entire team and their Haitian staff were affected.

Our worst ones were serious head traumas (2 americans, 1 Haitian) with multiple lacerations; 2 femur fractures; 3 de-gloving injuries (Haitian): bilateral arms (not much left of them actually), one foot, and one lower leg. The lower leg was not only de-gloved, but the tibia was fractured so bad that the foot was barely hanging on and no muscle was visible at first glance (an amputation for sure); 5 other concussions with head lacerations (americans), 2 potential t-spine fractures (americans); partial scalping and multiple facial lacerations; other head lacerations; other cuts scrapes and shock. OK I think that is it but I may be missing some.

The team again did great and God provided. It happened on sun so this means no Haitian staff. We have no team nurses this week except one from Trinity. But, as it was a local accident, our friends from Global mission showed up with 4 nurses and 1 ER doc, Samaritan's purse sent a couple nurses, another organization showed up with 2 Haitian docs and 2 nurses and University of Miami sent over all their ambulances. We ran rotating ambulances for the patients and worked for 5 hours.

Bottom line is post earthquake, the ER comes to us whether or not we have an official "ER" or "urgent care clinic". I am praying for funding....

and I am going to bed."

Dr. Cheryl van der Mark

Medical Coordinator

Mission of Hope Haiti

The MOH entranceA Haitian taxi ("tap tap")The MOH Medical Clinic