Haiti News
— Friday, January 29th, 2010 by Christopher Pince
The following is a shortened version of an e-mail from Coast Guard Ensign Christopher Pince, 22, who is aboard the Tahoma, a U.S. Coast Guard cutter that has been dispatched to Haiti to assist earthquake victims. Christopher e-mailed this letter to his fiance on Saturday, January 16. A Warm Beach resident brought this message in to share with you.
Shortly after I e-mailed you this morning, I was told I was going to be on one of the boarding teams going over this morning. Soon you couldn't even see water, it was just trash and debris. We were dropped off at the Haitian Coast Guard base...or what was left of it. It really was just a couple ruined buildings and a dock. As you looked around all you could see were uprooted trees and deserted huts, most of which were completely in ruins. I passed several huge stone buildings that were destroyed and looked like they were about to fall over at the slightest breeze.
As we got closer to the building that we had set up as our makeshift clinic, the silence was broken by the sounds of people, but it wasn't the normal sounds you hear from people...they were screams, wailing, crying and desperate calls for what had to be help. I knew I was going to be walking into a destroyed third world country, but nothing could hav eprepared me for what I saw at the clinic. The stench inside was incredible. It smelled like garbage (which turned out to be rotting flesh) and then mixed with bleach, which is what we used to clean the floors and tables. I grabbed splints, gauze, bandages, disinfecting solutions and other supplies and headed back outside. From that point on we just went from person to person, splinting arms, cleaning and bandaging woundes, and comforting and giving water to everyone we could find. It was like walking into a nightmare. I had to stop and pray several times, just for the strength to keep going.
I was cleaning a wound on a small boy, and a man with a broken leg was talking to me. He kept telling me how he "loved Americans" and how "God will bless America forever." Everyone I saw, even if they didn't know any English, were just so thankful. One thing I want you to know is that every day Captain will ask us who wants to go over the next day, and everyone raises their hand. That's the kind of people that are working down here right now. They are devoted to their job and helping people. This is why we signed up.