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13 · Wednesday, January 20, 2010 OAKVILLE BEAVER · www.oakvillebeaver.com Family's blog describes chaos of earthquake Continued from page 1 The following is an edited excerpt from that blog that describes the quake, its aftermath and what the van der Marks have been experiencing. Tuesday, January 19, 2010 Words cannot express I don't know how to start this email. Maybe with a "We are sorry" for the lack of communication. Thank you to my daughter Teagan for communicating with so many of you for us. I am exhausted, emotionally drained and in control at the same time. It is time to tell our story. We are all okay. Our house still stands. That is a blessing. If that were not the case, we would not have been able to help so many after the quake hit. The Earthquake It started as a low hum and shake, then it grew.... I thought, "That is strange." In seconds the house came alive. The shaking was incredible. I remember seeing the concrete walls moving violently. The ceiling was moving. The floor beneath my feet did not feel attached to me. The next thing I remember was Laurens running in the house yelling "Get out ...RUN." I ran to the door grabbing as many of my children as I could. We reached the steps to the garden and I remember how difficult it was to run down them as the concrete steps were moving. The dog followed. When I got to the end of the driveway, I looked around and counted kids. Somewhere between the driveway and road, the movement stopped. For a moment ...then it started again, almost as big as the first, and long, as well. I gathered the kids and instructed them to sit and we huddled until it stopped. Then it started again ...finally the earth rested. Then I stood up and turned around ...from our rural hill not far from Port au Prince, we have a view of the whole city. As I looked out towards the city and ocean, I realized what had just happened. The entire city went up in dust. One huge, even dust cloud arose from the entire massive city. It was like a bomb had gone off and it was the smoke rising. Immediately after the quake Laurens went to check on things and I gathered the team. Grant (Rumford of Burlington) went to get the ambulance and I gathered the nurses and doc. We headed to the clinic. The injured began arriving. They came in tap taps (pick up truck taxi). Children, women and men. Their arms and legs were crushed, "The injured started arriving. Children, women and men. Their arms and legs were crushed, their bones sticking out of their bodies, their heads gashed open. Five, six, seven people per truck. We started to realize that we were all there was for miles." Dr. Cheryl van der Mark SAFE IN HAITI: Oakville chiropractor, Dr. Cheryl van der Mark, right, with her family, husband Laurens, daughter Teagan and sons Grayden and Bridgely, in a family photo taken several years ago. The family is in Haiti. their bones sticking out of their bod"We reached the steps to the ies, their heads gashed open. Some crying in pain, some barely alive. Five, garden and I remember how difficult it was to run down six, seven people per truck. For the next 33 hours straight we them as the concrete steps worked on the traumatic cases. It were moving." looked like war. We did not know the integrity of the clinic yet so we could Dr. Cheryl van der Mark not go inside. The aftershocks started to come and were frequent. We had to get supplies inside, but ran back out scalps back together and cleaned conevery aftershock. The injured were crete out of wounds for hours. We stabilized pelvic fractures and lying all over our outside walkway. (We) worked on triaging the worst we helped babies with head trauma breathe on oxygen. patients. We had three die. We saved a lot. We are not a full-service hospital, At the end of 33 hours, we had diswe are just a clinic ...we started to get reports that the biggest hospital in charged all but five. The last few, we PAP (Port-au-Prince), General attempted to take to hospitals. Three Hospital, had crashed down, Doctors refused and wanted to go home to die. The other two, Grant and Laurens without Borders had crashed (the only two main ERs in the entire city). tried to find somewhere that would We got further reports other hos- take them in Port Au Prince. It was pitals were down. We started to real- true, most hospitals were not functioning and those that were, were full ize, we were all there was for miles. At the 20th hour, we could not of bodies, inside and out. Everywhere, accept any more patients as we still some alive and some dead. Bodies were piled up in the parkhad to get through many, many more. We sent our nurses (except for a few) ing lots as there was nowhere to put and our helpers to work in shifts and them. Most of the doctors who used to work at the hospitals were dead or not Grant and I worked on. We reduced (tractioned) open heard of. Families had nowhere to compound fractures ...putting tibia take their loved ones' bodies. We went home and slept six hours. bones that were sticking out back into people's legs. We reduced and set then opened the clinic again. We many, many femur fractures, lower worked another 10 hours, seeing the leg fractures, arm fractures. We same things. Finally it stopped. There sutured arms, legs, heads. We put were no more tap taps running as there was no more diesel. That same night, the president of Mission of Hope arrived. We started into disaster relief planning with some partner organizations. By this time, reports of what the damage in the country looked like were becoming clear. We had U.S. and Canadian doctors start to come in through the Dominican (Republic). We have had doctors coming now since Saturday. We have been coordinating a grand-scale disaster relief plan for the hundreds of thousands of people that have not yet got into the hospital and for food distribution. It is, to say the least, no small task. We have hardly slept, we have not been able to communicate with you. Tonight it was time. Damage in Port-au-Prince The capital is devastated. The national palace is on the ground (white house), the ministry of transportation is on the ground, the huge justice palace (the whole judicial system) is on the ground, the ministry of health is on the ground, the ministry of finance is not down, but destroyed. The entire downtown core has almost every building down to rubble, the insurance bureau is on the ground, every national bank headquarters is crashed to the ground except one that stands severely damaged, the police headquarters is in rubble, the hospital (the best in the country) is severely damaged and non-functional, the building that has all the adoption papers in the country is destroyed. The only grocery store that all the missionaries shop at is rubble on the ground killing and trapping everyone inside. The Montana Hotel where we had lunch not so long ago is completely rubble killing everyone inside, many colleges and schools crashed down, Digicel world headquarters (cell phone) is to the ground (hence we have no cell communications and on.....and on.....and on. We have 160 staff on our mission and we already know of one that has died and we still have not heard from about 100. Most everyone has a family member that has died. One security guard has four children that died. Many of our Haitian staff suffer severe post traumatic stress. One of our friends was trapped in his school next to 50 of his classmates who were crushed by the building. He heard them screaming, but could not save them. He watched them die, as he was trapped inside for three hours with a dead man on his chest. He was pulled out eventually. Every time a plane passes over, or a car drives up, we all brace ourselves or jump until we realize it is not another quake. We often have a false sense that the ground is moving. People have a fear to go in buildings. We sleep with the front door open. It is better than the tents we slept in at first. But we are moving on. We are alive and our house is fine. Mission of Hope is an oasis compared to the city. The kids are good. They are resilient and started back to school today. We have a great team at Mission of Hope. Despite the destruction, we are seeing hope. I have learned more in one week than most in a lifetime. I now know how to reduce compound open wound fractures, I know how to cast, I know how to suture and have become proficient enough that I sutured the flap of someone's nose back on (quite good, too, I might add). I know how to handle cases when there is no other option. I know how to stab an attempt at coordinating disaster relief and run functional field clinics. I am part of meetings at the UN logistics base with the World Health Organization, UN, military and NGOs. I am one of the few North American docs on the ground right now that lived in Haiti and I am visiting and coordinating inside many field and broken-down hospital set ups. It is strange. It is surreal. If someone had told us this is what we would have had to do this week, we would have underestimated our abilities. We thank you for your prayers this past week. This is not over, it is a long road ahead. Please pray for the Haitian people. Every person was affected by this. Pray for supply chains to open up, for the port to be fixed, for timely food and water distributions, for organization of relief organizations and military. Pray that now eyes will be opened to the need we had prior to this earthquake. To view the entire blog entry, visit www.vdmcrew.blogspot.com. Asked what Oakvillians could do to help, Cheryl, in an e-mail to the Oakville Beaver wrote, "The residents of Oakville can donate to Mission of Hope at www.mohhaiti.org, and click for Canadian donors."