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March 2010 - Vol. 5, No. 3

A helping Hand in Haiti

Third-year student Matthew Edson lends paramedic skills to aid earthquake victims

- Matthew Edson says he’d still be there if he could. So strong is his sense of compassion and conscientiousness, he wishes he could do more.

(This is the cover story from the March 2010 Lifelines - download the PDF)

Matthew Edson

Third-year veterinary student Matthew Edson visits a girl he met at the orphanage where he was staying during his four-day visit to help the relief effort in Haiti. The little girl was transferred back to the orphanage after undergoing surgery on the USNS Comfort, a medical relief ship (also featured in the fall 2010 Healing Hands). Matthew said "I was saving that little pink flamingo beanie baby for her, but she had fallen asleep and I didn't want to wake her up. She ended up getting transferred to the University of Miami (Fla.) Medishare hospital where I was working a few days later. Luckily I still had the beanie baby in my bag and got to give it to her then."

Matthew Edson

Matthew starts an IV on a patient outside the ER/Triage tent. To his right, is Limage, who acted as Matthew's translator. This was the first time they met; afterwards Limage worked with Matthew during every night shift.

Matthew Edson and mother Carly

Matthew with his mother, Cathy, take a quick break outside the triage tent. Cathy is a nurse practitioner.

Matthew Edson checks leg

Matthew treats a pre-op patient in the orthopedic tent. He had an open fracture of his leg and was being treated (interestingly enough with Equine fAb fragment tetanus anti-toxin) to prevent tetanus.

Only two weeks after a devastating earthquake hit the island nation of Haiti in January, Matthew Edson, third-year veterinary student, made arrangements to take an unscheduled break from his studies to join ongoing relief efforts. His mother, a nurse practitioner in New Jersey who specializes in emergency, burns, and trauma, had already decided she wanted to go to Haiti and thought Matthew might want to come along.

“I was at a camelid conference at the University of Missouri, and she called me during the middle of that conference,” Matthew said. “Before going to veterinary school, I was a paramedic and kept my license current, so I figured I could go down there and help out.”

Matthew and his mother joined a relief group called Mercy Works that organizes groups of ER doctors and medical workers for relief assistance around the world. They left for Haiti on Jan. 26 and returned Feb. 1.

“We went to the city of Port-au-Prince and worked in the national police headquarters -- right across from the national palace that had collapsed,” Matthew said. “Half of the building was still pretty stable, so they had a couple of clinic rooms in there. They also had a small operating room in there, and we spent about half the first day in there.”

Matt said the circumstances weren’t the best, so they had to adjust their plans.

“Some members of our group were orthopedic surgeons, and the facilities there weren’t really that great,” he said. “We ended up getting on with the University of Miami’s Medishare Hospital, which is the biggest trauma surgical hospital they have in Haiti right now. It’s really just a big series of tents and stuff, but it’s really well-stocked, well-supplied and well-staffed. We were lucky enough to get credentials there, so that’s where we spent the majority of our time.”

Matthew explained there were tents where the relief workers could sleep, although he slept very little.

“You don’t really get time to get oriented, because as soon as your shift starts, there are patients coming from every which way,” Matt said. “The first day I got put in charge of the emergency department -- I think I got two hours of sleep that night. We were at a triage tent and took in people with emergencies. Some people came in unconscious; some people came in with diarrhea – you saw everything. If they had an orthopedic injury, we would stabilize them and send them to the orthopedics tent. If it was a pediatric patient, we’d stabilize them and send to the pediatric tent. The first day there I lost my mother and found out later she had been pulled away to help deliver a baby.”

Matthew found the volume of patients and severity of injuries to be a little overwhelming.

“I thought I had seen a lot of trauma as a paramedic, but this experience was like an entire year in four days,” Matthew said.

While the workdays were long, Matthew brought along some of his notes from K-State and found little bits of time in which to study. He also made friends with other relief workers and some the patients.

“The patients down there are so grateful for everything that you do,” Matthew said. “No matter what you do or how painful a procedure is, all they have to say is, ‘Merci, merci’ - thank you, thank you.”

Matthew extended his own thank-you to Mercy Regional Health Center in Manhattan. The hospital provided $500 worth of medical supplies for Matthew to take to Haiti.

“That was really nice of them, and I was very lucky too, to be able to take time from my classes,” Matthew said. He managed to pick a time in his schedule where he didn’t have tests or labs. While he is back to the everyday life of being a veterinary student, he still thinks a lot about his experience.

“It was really hard to leave,” he said. “There’s so much more to do. If I could, I would go back now and keep trying to help.”

Matthew Edson
Matthew stands on the roof of the national police headquarters. Behind him is the national palace, which collapsed from the earthquake.



Lifelines is published each month by the Marketing and Communications Office at the College of Veterinary Medicine. The editor is Joe Montgomery, jmontgom@vet.k-state.edu.

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