Former Children’s Hospital surgeon depicts Haiti’s horror

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Within a matter of hours on Jan. 12, Dr. Henri Ford understood why “he was put on this earth.”

The former chief of pediatric surgery at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh realized he could heal some of the suffering wrought by the earthquake that rocked his native Haiti earlier that day.

“I was uniquely qualified to respond because my entire life had prepared me for such a time as this,” Ford, 51, said Friday as he delivered the Eugene S. Wiener Lecture at the hospital. “I called my wife and before I could say anything, she said, ‘You need to go to Haiti.'”

Ford spoke to a group of about 200 people that included doctors, nurses and officials at the Lawrenceville hospital.

“When someone you know well has this kind of experience it brings some reality to a situation than can otherwise feel far away,” said Dr. Andrew Urbach, medical director for clinical excellence and service. “It’s stronger than simply seeing the images on TV.”

He said Ford’s talk conveyed just how good American citizens have it, “and how many challenges still exist for the people of Haiti — and how much support for them is still needed.”

Ford, a vice president and chief of surgery at Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles, arrived in Port-au-Prince on Jan. 16.

“Nothing could have prepared me for the devastation I encountered in the city I grew up in,” said Ford.

He showed images on a screen depicting the horrors Haitians endured from the 7.0 magnitude quake.

One picture showed the distended stomach of a boy, 6, who had a ceiling collapse on him. Another illustrated the boy’s ruptured bladder.

Ford pointed to the head of a girl, 12, on the screen who had bits of brick embedded in her skull. She endured pressure on her brain from the pieces for five days before Ford and Dr. Sanjay Gupta, a neurosurgeon who is CNN’s chief medical correspondent, removed them.

He showed photographs of patients who lay on the sidewalk waiting to be admitted to a makeshift hospital; a baby in a crib that consisted of a cardboard box, tin foil and the heating element from a military MRE (Meal Ready to Eat); and children recovering from surgery sitting on the grass inside their new homes: tents made from four poles stuck in the ground covered with sheets or blankets.

“We saw hundreds of people every day; some of them came in wheelbarrows,” Ford said.

Perhaps what struck Ford most, however, were the attitudes survivors displayed.

“The Haitian people didn’t lose hope,” Ford said. “They did not carry anger. Instead, they kept talking about how grateful to God they were that their lives had been spared. They talked about how maybe Haiti would bounce back and be better than before.”

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1 thought on “Former Children’s Hospital surgeon depicts Haiti’s horror

  1. And our horror only begins now.
    People already forgot all our persons without arms or legs.
    We do not have houses.
    Rain will kill more.
    Disease is here.
    And the Preval governement does nothings.

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