Rooney, medical volunteers assist with aid to Haiti.

January 26, 2010

WPTV - NewsChannel 5 interview Rep. Tom Rooney as he visits the tragedy in Haiti.

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PETIT GOAVE, HAITI - A seventeen year old Haitian girl lies on a table surrounded by American missionaries, medical volunteers, and a U.S. Congressman, all hoping and praying the baby she's trying to deliver will survive in this disaster ravaged country.

"Poussez, Poussez!" shouts a nurse, urging the teen to push harder.

The medical team, assembled from a collection of volunteers from across the United States and Haiti, tries to work under the glow of a single generator-powered L.E.D. light. The country, now in its 13th day since the earthquake, is still living without electric power.

"She'll have to get this baby out before it gets dark," says one volunteer, the room dimming in the late afternoon sun.

Outside the tiny cinderblock room where the teen is giving birth, more nurses, doctors and volunteers work beneath tents and in the open air under trees.

This is not a medical clinic, or at least it wasn't before the earthquake-- it was the grounds of a church. But the disaster has turned the facility, what's left of it, into the only medical facility within miles. Nearby hospitals sit in piles of rubble.

Sarah Franklin of Stuart cradles a 4 1/2 month old baby boy. Just an hour or so earlier, the child came to the clinic listless, his vital signs weak - a sign of malaria. "He was almost dead," said Franklin.

The volunteers ended up administering an IV into the child's tiny leg. Half of a water bottle covers the insertion point to keep it clean. Medical supplies are scarce, especially in this village 20 milers from Port-au-Prince, so the volunteers make due with what they have.

The baby's twin sister lies inches away, also perking up and even showing a smile thanks to the life saving care.

"They're only 10 pounds, the size of a newborn, even though they're 4 months old. They're so underweight," says Franklin.

I ask her about her medical training and that's when she explains she has none. She is a waitress at Carson's Pub in Stuart. Her mother planned to go to Haiti to help with the relief effort and she followed.

Now she's wearing medical scrubs cradling a baby whose life she helped save.

Back in the cinderblock room where the teen is delivering, there is no celebration when the baby emerges.

It's a little girl, but she is silent. No newborn cry.

A physician rushes the child over to a towel-covered crate and places an oxygen mask on the baby's mouth, pumping it by hand.

Minutes pass. U.S. Rep. Tom Rooney of Tequesta gathers near. He flew into Haiti this morning along with Florida Sen. Joe Negron of Stuart in an effort to assess the needs of the island and to visit Martin County volunteers at the clinic.

Then a weak cry, more like a squeak, comes out of the child's mouth, followed by another. All of the volunteers seem to exhale at once, relieved. But the child is not out of the woods yet points out Gary Urban.

Urban founded Family Private Care, a private nursing company based out of Martin County. He coordinated the group of volunteers to staff this clinic for 5 days.

Urban askes Rooney to travel to the nearest military outpost and ask for help.

The twins, the newborn, and a fourth child all need more advanced medical care that's beyond the resources of the tiny makeshift clinic.

Rooney travels half a mile down the road and talks his way into a U.S. military outpost, set up to distribute food and water for the recovery effort.

He waits to talk to the commanding officer at the post, hoping to coax him into diverting a Blackhawk helicopter to fly the four children offshore, where a Navy hospital boat is docked.

Then Sarah Franklin and the other volunteers drive up carrying the babies, all outfitted with IV's the volunteers are holding over their heads.

"This baby is going to die if he does not get more help," says one nurse, cradling a newborn with one hand, an IV bag i nthe other.

The desperate display is apparently enough to convince the outpost's colonel to change his supply plans and transport the children to the ship.

Night has fallen and the medical volunteers, along with some Congressional help, managed to save or at least stabilize four new lives.

Tomorrow at daybreak hundreds more Haitians will line up at that same open air clinic, looking for more life saving help.