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Cooper team seeing human toll of Haitian earthquake

Wednesday, January 20th, 2010



A medical mission from Camden, New Jersey will begin treating victims of Haiti's earthquake today. The group flew into the capital city of Santo Domingo earlier this week but are now on the border of Haiti.

(Photo: Members of the Cooper team take a break outside of a public hospital after performing surgeries / Susan Phillips)

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After a ten hour bus trip through the congested streets of the capital, and later, along winding mountainous roads, the group landed in the border town of Jimani.

Both aid workers and victims of last weeks' earthquake have converged on the town, where two hospitals are treating hundreds of Haitians who arrive each day. Several doctors from the group visited a church where pews had been replaced by mattresses where amputees lay side by side. There they met a volunteer doctor named Marta Butler who helped run the facility.

Butler: What do you guys do?

We have a team of specialists.

Butler: What kind of specialists?

I'm a trauma care doctor, he's a surgeon.

Butler: We need some help. we'll take the help we can get.

The team also met doctors who had crossed the border to Haiti, but had returned to Jimani. Milton Steinman is a Brazilian doctor, who was surprised by the hospitals he visited on the other side of the border, in Haiti.

Steinman: We found two hospitals, one of them was almost closed, one of them with two doctors inside with no patients at all we don't know why.

Steinman says the doctors themselves, did not know why they had no patients.

Back on the Dominican side, helicopters continued to land, and trucks continued to arrive, carrying the wounded from Port au Prince and other parts of Haiti.

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4 Comments

  • Mindy Boyles says:

    Carol,

    Emotional indeed. But Ang is doing great work, I'm sure of it. I'm keeping her in my thoughts and praying for steady hands, a strong heart, and a safe return home when her job is done.

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    • Carol Dixon says:

      Mindy,
      Thanks for your support and continued faith in Angela and her part in this possibly life-altering experience.

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  • Carol Dixon says:

    Quite an emotional picture and article.
    Please let me know how I may obtain get a copy of this picture.
    Angela is my daughter and it would mean so much to have it.
    Thank You

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    • cira debesa says:

      What an emotional picture. Dr. Orlando Debesa is my son.We are so very proud of him and all the Cooper Team. May God Bless them all. Thank-You for all the coverage you are giving the Cooper Team.

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