Shasta FIRE TEAM HAITI deploys

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notmeofficer

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After lots of hard work and prep our team of 10 deploys to Haiti starting tomorrow.. including three people from EMT life ... for two weeks

We will be doing medicals, critical facility assessments, and compound reconstruction

Look for our travel stories in about three weeks time

Its just as crazy and desperate down there as last time... but we will be way better prepared.. good comms... lots of self sufficiency capabilities,, lots of contingency plans

Notme
 
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Keep your line of commo open

and your "alternate supply path".
But I'm confident you know that already. PLAY SAFE.
 
OK, waiting..................................

or are you still mired over there?
 
Haiti part 2

It has been my extreme privilege to meet and work with those people who came from EMT life.com through my open call for volunteers. We will be friends for life and we may redeploy again next year..perhaps to another third world country

Haiti was better and Haiti was worse this time.. better in that the extreme trauma patients were far less and better because life is returning as the people knew it before.. other than the fact most of the population still lives outdoors and the monsoon season has started. Haiti was worse as the peoples desperation grows.

I would tell everyone that about a two week deployment time is all that one would want under the conditions we had to deal with. Just being on anti malaria drugs for the 6 weeks necessary to receive protection is hard enough on ones body.. and even then one may not be in the clear

We experienced a country in ruination.. it wont be fixed anytime soon. Most of the NGO's are gone.. and those still there for the long haul are severely underfunded and understaffed.
The Haitian people continue to be desperate for survival day to day.. medical is still needed and there are few resources to provide long term care for a broken country. My solution.. birth control ..education (all types) and development of a country from the ground up

Our team saw the most abject poverty.. we dealt with harsh conditions and polluted water our whole time there.. all groundwater is contaminated and most well water shows contamination down to 150 feet or more.. we literally poisoned ourselves while we were there... even the best filters can do only so much. Our host organization semi imploded while were there.. out of money.. it happens to the best of them....

Some of the team tried some of the local foods.. they all got sick.. bad move.. I told them not to and most of us stuck to our plan of food we brought... those of us that stayed to the plan did not get sick.. those that didnt got to deal with GI stuff...

We were well received by the people we saw.. who wouldn't be.. we brought free medical care. On one day we deployed to a hospital and several of the team (EMT-Bs) were tasked with going into the OR and actually doing surgical assist for a number of operations. On one particularly bad cancer patient dying one of our team had to scoop out copious amounts of gangrene flesh. He did this when the doctors were all puking in their masks.. kudos to our team member for keeping his cookies.. the smeel would make anyone ralph immediately.

We also got tasked to do many semi-military activities.. walk patrol.. provide operational security.. gps locations... fortunately most of us were ex mil and/or law enforcement. We did arm our team.. I wont go any further into this other than to say we had enough stuff to provide basic protection for ourselves but not much more.. One does NOT want to get caught in a foreign country with weapons.. prison is not kind.. and for an American it would be deadly.. the Haitian government would make an example out of you... Also all of this was getting pretty far afield from our primary mission.. that being medical and humanitarian.

We did get asked to do body recovery.. we refused the mission because it was too unsafe working inside the collapsed buildings and because we had no equipment or backup resources.. remember our primary precept of scene safety.. our safety first above all... it was hard to refuse but it was the right call. The bodies are mostly still entombed where they were form the beginning of the earthquake.. who knows if they will ever be recovered. We saw one open dead body that lay on the street each day we went out on mission.. it laid there for a week or more then one day it was gone.. most lieky pushed into the waterway rather than being actually picked up.

We saw a lot of malaria and typhus. Flu like symptoms masking whether something was more serious... again.. not much we could do...

It was bloody hot this time.. hotter than last time because the humidity has gone up with the advent of monsoons... it was easily 105 heat index everyday... by the end of our stay heat rash was all over all of us.. nothing we could do would change this because we couldn't even get clean water to bathe in

I don't know if we will go back to Haiti again.. its so screwed up over there its like pissing on a forest fire with the wind blowing at you. The traffic was even worse this time.. fuel wars were going on.. but there were many more people out on the streets as survival requires movement in the third world.. move or die.. and that includes moving around the city looking for food and water...

Words of wisdom.. you cant over prepare for third world deployments.. you'll rarely have too much of anything, We took radios for our entire team.. they were invaluable....

I am lucky to be an American.. I know that each and every day.

notme
 
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Your posts are terrific, and incredibly well balanced. This is my thank you to you and your team for doing what most of us will never step up to do!
 
Well, notme, you're the wellhead of practical knowledge.

I'll bet you a dollar you have little to only moderate incentive to recount it right now. We'll be listening.

One thing...were "ham" radios in use and if so, were they of much help?

And one other...anything we lay persons could have done to support you?
 
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We took cheapie Motorola's with us.. AA battery stuff.. AA's are plentiful everywhere.. rechargeable and other types aren't.. who knows if you'll have electricity. The motorolas performed flawlessly and battery life was measured in days.. so they were excellent.

The radios had multiple channels although we never had any interference and never needed to switch channels ever.. this made it easy because all we had to remember was channel 1... Distance was a problem,, especially in a dense city full of concrete.. line of site was about it... but that worked ok as we made the decision not to split up except on one occasion (but we required the buddy system at all times) this proved to be smart

A mobile repeater would have been great but we were at bingo on all our weights and the airlines weren't as friendly this time.. it took an act of God not to get charged for the gear we took in.. (2 bags of 50 pounds each and our tactical vests stuffed with gear and daypacks.. these again proved invaluable during deployment as all the stuff you absolutely needed was always on your person) We were able to secure a wholesale deal with 5.11 gear through one of our team members (Yates Climbing Gear.. John Yates)... I cant say enough good things about their gear.. well designed and durable...
John also donated waterproof custom made gear bags for the team that fit our cot/tent combos. Even though we were able to secure sleeping quarters inside a building the mosquito are so nasty we still slept.. or should I say sweated inside our cot tents. I carry 5.11 gear all the time now.

We traveled commercial all the way. Traveling actually wasn't too bad. The police at Miami brought us through the line for uniformed personnel (we were all in uniform both coming and going). It was kind of funny.. coming out of Haiti and coming west we got stripped searched and one TSA idiot treated us poorly with crappy comments about our uniforms calling them "get-ups" I complained about her treatment and got another officer to search me.. totally professional.. after two weeks we didn't look or smell like we really wanted to be screwed with..we did our best to maintain good uniform discipline,, but hey its hard to do when you are deployed... other than that that travel is what it is.. cattle car and rush

I believe ham was used successfully in Haiti by the University of Miami hospital teams.. we had the ability to bring it but because of cost and not all the team being licensed we elected to go commercial instead. My license covered us all.
 
the buddy system

It was invaluable..
All the tricks and planning in the world doesn't work if there isn't good team discipline. Building a cohesive team from people who may have never met is problematic... one must train so that muscle memory and trust is built in.. fortunately there was a core group of us that had worked together and everyone was very mature and adult.. this took all the stress of team inter-dynamics away as everyone stepped up and did their jobs without complaints.. we all got assigned duties..

We used ICS.. it works and it works in all scenarios

I/C.. safety officer.. team medical liaison (watched our water consumption and did sick call every morning), communications officer (GPS and anything electronic became his purview..right down to radio checks and battery checks), Hospital stores and liaison officer (got us drugs.. made trades.. made connections that no one else or other teams had.. invaluable.. he got us in the OR and exposed our team to things few people at BLS.. probably ALS will ever get to do except in combat)

Im often asked.. what could "we" as Americans do to help you...the answer is.. there is no simple answer.. donated monies disappear into black holes of organizations...

We self-funded ourselves.. it probably cost each team member about 2000.00 in food equipment travel and logistics.. some of that will be long term costs.. good equipment costs money and good equipment lasts.. there's no place for cheap stuff unless you are leaving it in country,, and we did do that with most of our gear.. only because the people needed it more than we did.. We did keep a core amount of equipment that has been cleaned and put into storage for redeployment.. we are considering making ourselves a ready action team.. deployable with three hours notice.. this requires huge hurdles to overcome..huge amounts of pre-planning and keeping everything form documents to finances up to date... we will be looking at this after the fire season
We gave away some of our radios to our interpreters.. these are educated local people who have been working for months now without a paycheck.. we gave them our tents.. our bags.. all the food we had left over.. most of what we took in with us...

We did some fund raising before we left.. but honestly this was difficult and felt like begging.. we could do this better in the future.. more public exposure would be the way to go before we left.. Americans are generous.. we probably could have raised enough money to fund the trip this way.. there's a reason governments work in disasters and not private people.. governments bring money and infrastructure.. In the case of Haiti it seems to be the other way around.. which is why things aren't happening like they should be... even the big money.. Clinton-Bush money justifiably wont flow until there are some reasonable assurances it wont get pissed away or disappear.. and Im not sure that is even possible..

We were in a funny position... our departments didn't want to pay for us to go.. they didn't want the liability or insurance disasters that could occur.. we all understood this...but it seemed like they did want the "fame" of their people deploying. Our individual stations were happy to let us go scheduling wise.. but we went as private citizens wearing station uniforms/patches (which weren't copyrighted).. (not state uniforms.. which are).. In the end we decided to make up our own uniforms and had our own shirts designed.. end of story. I personally think uniforms kept us out of a lot of trouble as it showed people a force and not a singular person... being readily identifiable was also helpful for making contacts and even getting the kids to come over and play with us...liquid bubbles.. mandatory for third world kids.. they might cry and be afraid.. blow some bubbles for them and then allow them to do same.. melts everyone... BUT.. if you give it to one be prepared to give it to all...

Ok.. the buddy system story and why
One day myself and another team member ended up on a transport alone.. going to get a group of interpreters.. at one point the bus driver became involved in an incident with a cart pusher (I mean a frigg'in huge cart with a car axle.. the cart was about 15 feet long),, the cart bumped the bus.. the bus driver bumped back hitting the cart pusher.. bam slam window pounding crap.. I got up out of my seat to get a view of what was happening and the bus driver popped the clutch hitting the cart driver again and then the bus slammed on his brakes (folks.. this is normal Haiti driving practices,, respect for life is definitely subdued)
Anyway I was standing in the open doorway when this happened and got slammed forward and then backwards hitting my head on the door frame..
My buddy looked at me in horror as I sat down with stars spinning in my head .. he exclaimed .. hey are you ok,, your bleeding big time..
After the initial shock of getting my bell rung I realized I was OK but had torn my ear getting it smashed.. ears bleed folks.. blood rich head areas do.. we all know that...
My buddy (a marine fresh out of Iraq) battlefield dressed me.. I probably looked a little strange the next two days with blood and bandages on my head treating others...
The point of all this is.. had I been alone and knocked out I would have been screwed.. I wore a boonie hat the whole time on this deployment which saved my ear.. next time Id consider a USAR helmet.. several team members also thought this would be a good precaution

Moving in the third world is dangerous and there is no room for error

notme
 
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What will I be doing this year

Well Im moving up to professional teaching ems..
Teaching is a passion for me.. Ive already lived through two careers and am getting long in the tooth for the third world .. part of this trip was to pass the baton to someone whom i trust who is 25 years my junior.. Im going to let him take on the planning responsibilities for the next deployment.. the responsibilities are huge...


Im also polishing my old wilderness medicine skills.. Ill be trying to get a doctor to be a medical director specifically for EMS wilderness training and skills (which as we know are not recognized in California)

California has some more advanced EMT skills coming online so ill be learning those.. as well as the specialized training that the TWO emsa's in my area now offer

I have thought about going EMT-p.. but again I'm a little too old for a third career.. I get my senior citizen discount this year...:P



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drinking water


the dead lay where they fall



the magnitude



tent camps.. 1000-10000 people without infrastructure


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Where did you work down there? Some of the locations in your pics look somewhat familiar. Thanks for sharing about your deployment. I aggree with you on the condition of the country, I saw alot of that stuff while down there.
 
Pics are from Port Au Prince.. Cite de Soliel... I have hundreds of them.. this is just to give the thread some reference points.

Anyone who has been there knows exactly what I speak about.. the smells.. the people.. the hopelessness seen in some of their faces.. the corruption.. the scams.. the "Haitian" hustle always going on

thanks to everyone who supported us from EMT life

notme
 
Outstanding work gentlemen. I'm sure many people over there owe you more than just thanks, although it's all that they can give.
 
So, I was wrong! THANKS!!

This is extremely useful.

Oh, and there are ways we can repay. If his sponsoring organization has a website it could have (or get) a "DONATE" button. We can patronize anu businesses which may have made donations. We can "pay it on" by volunteering ourselves no matter where. And we can act to keep this "corporate knowledge" intact against the tide of spin and PC that seems to eventually take the truth out of most experience learned "on the ground".
If the OP cares to publish this, let us know!
 
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