BSVAC Welcomes Back First-Responders, Readies Second Wave

 ”When we got to the hospital the first thing was to see patients.  Some of them were crying and screaming.  We were working since then, nonstop,” said Poucheralph Salomon, a member of the 44-person medical delegation of the Bedford-Stuyvesant Volunteer Ambulance Corps that was on the ground Saturday after the Tuesday earthquake.   “I’m a Haitian immigrant who came here in 1998, and I’m an American and I was proud to get down there and be able to help my people.” When they slept it was on the floor of a nearby house and then they were back surrounded by the sounds of pain and the smell of blood and death, giving their food to the patients. “I feel like I’m still in Haiti right now.” 

Mr. Salomon was speaking in an interview after a press conference welcoming the returning volunteers, and introducing the second wave of volunteers going to Haiti.  At the conference Congressman Ed Towns said, “I was watching television and when the Bedford-Stuyvesant Volunteer Ambulance Corps marched off the plane I had such a fantastic feeling that Bedford-Stuyvesant was there.”  The congressman said he thought back to when he first met with Commander Rocky Robinson when Robinson was working out of the second floor of an abandoned building that was next to the current location.  “I remember when I went up to that second floor and it was raining inside the building.  When I left I said I’m going to help him but that man must have lost his mind to go into a building like that and talk about starting an ambulance corps.”

Acknowledging the power of a dream, Towns said, “As a result of your involvement here in Bedford-Stuyvesant,  Bedford-Stuyvesant went to Haiti and saved lives.  Within 24 hours, they delivered 23 babies. They were able to relieve pain and suffering.   This is what it is all  about – people who help people.” 

After the press conference Robinson spoke to the congressman of the kind of work they are doing in Haiti, saying of a CNN report, “They showed our dog, we have a dog, Cassius, named after Cassius Clay before he became Muhammad Ali, and he discovered the man in the hole.  And that’s our people pulling him out.  So we’re not only in the hospital, we have a small rescue team that’s saving lives.”

Dr. Roger St. Louis, one of the second wave of volunteers headed to Haiti as a member of the Ambulance Corps, said that the medical care must continue or more will die.  “Here’s the reason why.  We need orthopedics, anesthesiologists and surgeons on the first blow, and now it’s infections that are going to spread and kill people.”   Dr. St. Louis  emphasized the need for ongoing care, and the risk of gangrene setting into untreated wounds.  

“They need antibiotics, they need an arrangement where they can heal.  We believe that our first need will be healing the wounds and healing the infections.”
Another volunteer is Khadijah Shakur, a registered nurse since 1986.  A specialist in obstetrics and orthopedics, Shakur couldn’t sleep well in the aftermath of the quake. “So when I heard that the Ambulance Corps was looking for volunteers, I immediately came.  I felt I have to help my people.”  Even though she will be leaving soon, Khadijah says she is “restless and anxious because there are things that are needed down there.  Infection is running rampant and we need to be there and lay hands on these people.  They need doctors, nurses and physical therapists.  We have to get on the ground to help our people out.” 

Volunteer Dr. Gaston Valcin emphasized the emotional and psychological support  that is also needed.  “The Haitian people need counseling because so many are in shock right now.”  Asked how they could give up practices and go,  Dr. Hans Garry Torlan  said, “We’re natives of Haiti.  Haiti is our heart.  We put everything aside.”
Also, said Dr. St. Louis,  President Martin of Kings County Hospital is giving “lots of leeway” and providing opportunities, including a department where staff can register to go help in Haiti.    “Kings County is helping 110% in this catastrophic problem.”

Looking over where the BSVAC has come in the last twenty-two years, Robinson said, “Before, we were only the EMTs and paramedics, and now doctors and nurses are coming on board because they believe in what we’re doing.   I get calls from as far away as Georgia and Florida.  We’re galvanizing the Haitian community, the Caribbean community, the African-American community and even the Jewish community is having a dance for us on Monday.  People are really getting on board, but we are the leaders.  We have to lead the way.”  David Mark Greaves

View From Here – Help For Haiti

In this most calamitous of human tragedies in Haiti, the further devastation of people who already start from scratch, we’ve seen a global response of nations and individuals.   If you’re in the search and rescue profession anyplace on the planet, or a medical professional able to travel and driven by a need to heal, Haiti is the Big One, the place to be.  So they stopped what they were doing, gathered supplies and rushed on planes headed into harms way.   Natured may have shown the worst that it is capable of, but mankind countered with the best that we had, from all nations and that should also be remembered along with the pain.

There are many mainstream ways to send aid but we’ve offered several local efforts here, because when you’re speaking about Haiti, you’re speaking about slavery, skin color and political exploitation and because of that, it’s important that African people empower Black grassroots groups to give the aid that is needed. 

That point was driven home for me after I had just left a press conference centering around churches and groups coming together to help Haiti, and I turned on CNN and was assaulted by repeated images of armed forces “preventing looters,” a narrative of white supremacy they couldn’t shake, even after their use of the exact same language was pointed out after Katrina.

Each of these natural disasters was made worse because of the history dark-skinned people have had in the Americas.   Black poverty, whether highlighted by a hurricane in New Orleans an earthquake in Haiti, or depression-era unemployment Brooklyn, is slavery-based, subject to dark skin oppression and continues to this day.  So give to help in Haiti, and by empowering locally, help the community you’re in.

People Didn’t Believe This was The Big One

By Rachel Pratt and Garry Pierre-Pierre
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Marjorie Louis was sitting in her kitchen eating dinner when she felt the house shaking but she didn’t get up.

“I didn’t think it wasn’t going to be serious…and was waiting for it to stop. But I noticed it wasn’t stopping and finally tried to get up off the table but just couldn’t get up,” said Louis, a banker who lives in Delmas. “I looked outside the window and saw a large cloud of dust and started to hear my children screaming.”

Louis was considered among the lucky, having survived an earthquake that killed thousands of her countrymen. A few days after the seismic tremors, stories of survival, death and destruction continue to engulf this mountainous Caribbean nation of roughly 9 million people.

Her story is similar to those of millions of others after Haiti’s capital was hit with this seismic disaster. Thousands of people were killed and caught under the rubble for the same reason. They didn’t believe this was “the one” and were completely caught off guard. Haitians explained how miniearthquakes had become the norm in recent years. But they never imagined that this catastrophe would happen in their lifetime.
“Now I know that not leaving the house and making my family leave was a mistake. I feel so empty and helpless, ” Louis said. Six others in the house never left. Fortunately, they made it out alive.

According to a Haitian doctor, “There is a five-second rule. If you count to five and it keeps shaking, that’s when it’s serious.” Unfortunately …this one lasted longer than five seconds. But by the time a person finished counting, it was too late to escape.

Lyvee Memon had just arrived home from a funeral at Sacred Heart Church – a historical landmark completely destroyed- was in her living room when the tremors began. She couldn’t believe it was the real thing and planned to wait for it to stop until the walls fell all around her. She survived and was pinned under the rubble. “I was able to find a small little hole that only a child could fit through, to make it out,” Memon said days later.

Herold Guillaume was driving along Nazon Road when his green Toyota sedan began bouncing off, thinking that someone was hitting his car. He looked up to see buildings falling all around him. Debris falling all around him as the sky was quickly covered with a powdered substance.
“I left the car and walked home all the while thinking about my father who was home alone,” Guillaume said.

Emmanuel Jean was on the top floor of his three-story home and his father was in the study on the first floor. The robust building crumbled like matchsticks and Jean said he barely escaped.

“I ran downstairs and looked for my father and got him out,” said Jean, an electrical engineer. Since then, Jean has been living in his backyard while making arrangements to join his mother and sisters who live in Long Island.
“I’m still in shock,” he said. “I never expected this would come. Now we have to start our lives from nothing. I don’t know what we’re going to do.”