Sunday, Apr. 25, 2010
For Kelly Benard, helping earthquake victims in Haiti wasn''t just something she wanted to do.
"It was something I had to do," she said.
Benard is a prosthetist/orthotist at Manchester-based New England Brace Co., which sends teams of volunteers to bring new limbs and new hope to victims of the Jan. 12 earthquake.
Teams have made three trips to Haiti to measure and fit 10 patients with artificial limbs. And technicians in Manchester already are building prostheses for their next patients, including a 6-year-old boy.
International aid agencies estimate more than 2,000 Haitians lost limbs in the disaster.
Conditions in Haiti remain difficult, but there are signs of hope amid the rubble, according to Dennis Acton, who just returned from the latest trip. The "network guy" for New England Brace, Acton usually fixes computers, not people.
But when the former Army National Guardsman saw television coverage of the unfolding disaster, he felt compelled to act. "Just seeing the level of suffering and the level of destruction that happened, I just wanted to go," he said.
Acton linked up with Global Relief Technologies, a Portsmouth company that was heading to Haiti, to help compile a database of amputees who would need medical care.
The situation on the ground was "horrendous," Acton said. The streets had been cleared and international medical teams and relief agencies were working in field hospitals and tent cities.
But there were untold numbers of bodies trapped in the pancaked buildings, and thousands more had been buried in mass graves before they could be identified.
"It was sort of like 9/11," he said. "People went off in the morning, and they''re just gone."
A team is built
Back home, Acton shared what he had seen with his co-workers, including his wife, Karen. They created theNEBCO Foundation, a registered charity to help amputees in disaster zones. And they enlisted other skilled volunteers from around New England to join their cause.
One of the team leaders is Chris Phillips, a certified prosthetist/orthotist at NEBCO. He brings a unique perspective to his work.
Haitian dancer Fabienne Jean takes her first steps with her new prosthetic leg with help from physical therapists Karen Acton and Nicola Beauregard, part of the team working with amputees in Haiti. (COURTESY)
Born without a left leg below the knee, Phillips has worn a prosthesis since he was 2. He says he can''t know the grief and sense of loss that accompany amputation.
But in Haiti, where disability carries a stigma, Phillips said, he can "show people that I''m a normal person, that I can do everything that I want to do with a prosthesis, and that I have no shame about wearing something out in the open."
Phillips was wearing shorts one March day when the team walked into a field hospital outside Port-au-Prince. He was quickly surrounded by about 70 adults and children who marveled at his robotic-looking leg.
"I felt like I was a runway model," he said.
He was happy to show off his prosthesis. "I hope that people came away with this impression that it''s not a stigma, that an artificial limb helps get people back on their feet and go about their lives."
Benard, who just returned from her first trip to Haiti, said any apprehension vanished with her very first patient, a 13-year-old girl.
"You prime yourself for feeling despair, for being sensitive to the pain around you, but what you see there is just the strength of the human spirit," she said. "They are happy. They are moving on."
Fulfilling experience
The number of new amputees in Haiti presents medical responders with a unique challenge, Acton said.
"An amputation is a horrible, horrible injury," he said. "It''s something that affects you for the rest of your life."
So it''s crucial to set up a care-delivery system in the country that will help these patients for many years to come, he said.
"Amputees need a support system around them," Acton said. "They need to have a local clinic that they go to where people know them and they can get that care."
That system is starting to take shape. A University of Miami team is building a rehabilitation center and plans to train local residents in physical therapy and prosthetics, according to the UM Web site.
The New Hampshire team actually uses older technology in the artificial limbs given to patients in Haiti, Acton noted. Those materials are easier to maintain and less prone to causing infection in a tropical climate than some of the more expensive, high-tech limbs now available, he said.
So far, team members have been paying their own way to Haiti. They''ve raised about $7,000 through the NEBCO Foundation, which helps cover expenses down there, as well as medical supplies to build the prostheses up here.
Acton figures the company itself has donated about $25,000 in materials and staff time in the project to date.
Phillips has a ready answer for skeptics who ask why he''s invested so much of his own time and money in a country with such a troubled history.
"We''ve got 10 people that are walking now that weren''t walking eight, 10 weeks ago," he said. "That''s what makes it worthwhile."
His own experiences also drive him, Phillips said.
"My parents took me to the best clinics they could find," he said. "I was fit with top-of-the-line prostheses, and just was so blessed to have that kind of care and treatment."
In Haiti, he has found a way to "give back to people what I''ve been blessed with receiving my whole life," he said.
Kelly Benard said team members feel "powerfully led" to use their skills to help the Haitian amputees. People who choose her field, she said, "really desire to be able to make a difference in people''s lives."
And that''s what she witnessed last week in Haiti, she said. "There was just nothing in the world like seeing people walk on the legs that we had made, and do so well."
Click here to visit the NEBCO website