Days One and Two: Preparing to give medical help
From Heather Hall, DPT ‘11…
Day One actually began at 12:30 a.m. Saturday in a church parking lot in Peoria. We stood shivering around our bus as 56 pieces of luggage filled with 50 pounds each of medical and school supplies were loaded, and tried to catch some sleep during the ride to O’Hare International Airport. Our group made it through security and onto the plane without incident, but the plane never made it out of the gate. There was an un-fixable problem with the luggage compartment, so we were disembarked and rebooked on a different flight. Unfortunately, the delay caused us to miss our connecting flight in Miami to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic; but against all odds all 28 of us were given seats together on a later flight. We arrived safely several hours later with all of our luggage and climbed into two more buses for the three-hour drive to San Juan de la Maguana. After just over 24 hours of travel, we finally pulled into our destination!
Sunday morning we awoke to roosters and sunshine calling us to breakfast. The guesthouse we are staying in is connected to a medical clinic and set up with a guarding wall surrounding them both. After breakfast we left the walls behind and wandered through the town to see the plaza, barios, and visit a local church. Everywhere we went, the Dominican people knew we were Americans and waved, smiled, and practiced their English with us. In the afternoon we unpacked the suitcases we’d filled with supplies, and piled and sorted them into smaller packages to hand out during the week. It was amazing to see the piles of toothbrushes, shampoo, vitamins, and Band-Aids overflowing onto the floor and know that these small items would make a huge difference, maybe to some of the people we had met earlier in the day.
Tonight we had our first patient of the trip, from a motorcycle spill that took place next to one of the clinic trucks on the way back from church. In the Dominican Republic, only the driver is required to wear a seatbelt. The five people in the truck cab and nine in the truck bed, most of whom were medical personnel, all jumped out to help the accident victim. The doctors and nurses were able to pick him up, stitch him up, and send him home the same night. While we weren’t expecting to start treating people so soon, everyone was thankful that he was OK. Because it is not uncommon to see between 60 to 70 people lined up at the clinic when a medical team is in town, the plan tonight is to get a good night’s sleep before beginning the treatments we came to provide!