A Member of the University of Maryland Medical System | In Partnership with the University of Maryland School of Medicine
Email
Print
April 30th, 2010
Prepare for the unexpected and organize everything.
They moved the patients around last night so we didn’t know where anyone was. The rains had closed Ward One. Recreating an accurate patient census became necessary. Spontaneous pneumothorax, no chest tube, thank goodness we had X-ray, they said we wouldn’t.
Early in the day well dressed woman came in, an American whose mother had been injured in the quake but without care, she wanted to bring her in. The Brazilian field hospital people brought her over, nice group and instantly bonded by commonality of relief effort. The mother’s would was extensive over most of the forefoot with necrotic skin, muscle, and tendon obviously non-salvageable, needed amputation that afternoon. Turns out daughter is from Columbia, Maryland and goes to St. Louis Church (same as my family), small world. Walking around the hospital that had collapsed was humbling and eerie, major wards with beds and IV poles under rumble. Large oxygen tanks laying upside down among the debris. Not much to say when you think there are about a 100 patients and who knows how many nurses, physicians, and others buried in the debris still. All with 50 feet of where we are taking care of patients now. The pictures do not do it justice.
Click to Print
Print Preview
