Elena, Switzerland/USA - Night shift at the HUEH

“There was an old lady who was so thin you could count her bones. She had probably not been doing well before the earthquake, and although there was really nothing wrong with her medically, the doctor decided to keep her in the hospital, concerned she would die if he discharged her.  She was lying in bed, eyes shut, not eating or reacting to anything at all.  I held her and fed her—tiny pieces of food, piece by piece, hoping it would make a difference.

When I came back the next day, the first thing I saw was this woman, sitting up in her bed, eyes wide open.  I smiled at her, she smiled back.  Well on the road to recovery.”

“One night as we waited at the hospital for the bus to bring us back to our camp, two men drove up on a motorcycle balancing an unconscious boy between them.  They let him down at our feet saying  ‘do what you can for him,’ and drove off.  He appeared to be about 10 years old.  He was barely breathing.  We raced off to get the help of a doctor, who set the child up with an IV.  I was holding the boy when he suddenly opened his eyes and gave me a big smile—very much alive. Another casualty who made it.”

Elena recently returned home to the United States from Haiti and only two days later she went off again to Haiti, on her next project: help building an orphanage.