Schneily Similien

As Schneily steps forward, his father can't help but look back






By JoNel Aleccia -  Wed Mar 24, 2010 9:57 AM EDT



DESCHAPELLES, Haiti -- Schneily Similien doesn't want to wait a minute longer.
The 4-year-old Haitian boy who lost his left leg in the earthquake has just arrived for another visit at the clinic where he knows that today he's supposed to get an artificial limb.
He sees more than a dozen grown-up amputees wearing their legs, and, like any preschooler, he wants one, too.
"Papa! Papa! Go get my leg for me," he calls out in Haitian Creole. "Papa, get my foot so I can walk."
Schneily's father, Ducarmel Similien, also spelled Cimilien, is as anxious as anyone to see this new contraption, the device that's supposed to make his son whole again.
Still, he urges the rambunctious boy to be patient -- and brave.
"We're waiting, we're waiting," he says to his son. "Remember, don't cry when they put it on."
There seems to be little chance of that when prosthetics expert Jay Tew shows up a few minutes later with the leg. Tew is the manager of the newly launched Hanger Orthopedic Group clinic at Hopital Albert Schweitzer and Schneily is, so far, the youngest of some 85 patients.
The boy opens his eyes wide and giggles at the sight of the leg before hopping quickly on his crutches into the fitting room. He smiles as Tew powders his residual limb, a smooth stump of dark skin.
Tew slides a sock on the boy's limb, then a liner, then the leg. Over that he smoothes a sleeve that will hold the limb on Schneily's body.
Finally, it's time to walk.
Schneily slides off the bench where he's sitting and steps gingerly onto the floor. The leg is a little short, Tew says, and they'll need to adjust it later.
Schneily will need new shoes, too, two of them, for proper fitting, and he gives someone, anyone, money to rush to the nearby market to find a pair of size 6 children's sneakers.
Meanwhile, Schneily takes one step, then two, and then looks anxiously toward his dad. The smile is gone. His left knee buckles a bit.
"Stand up tall, up tall," Tew urges in English, frustrated once again that he doesn't speak Creole.
As Tew holds him, Schneily takes a few more hard, wobbly steps away from the bench, then back before Tew sits him down.
"Yay!" Tew cheers, slapping Schneily's hand. "High five!"
A few feet away, Ducarmel watches the process intently until Schneily is done. Then, the 40-year-old carpenter, a man who has trekked across hundreds of miles in post-quake Haiti to get help for this child, walks over to the corner of the room, bows his head against the cinder block wall -- and cries.
The leg is fine, he tells a translator, but it's also a jarring reminder that even with the device, an already hard life in Haiti will be even harder for his youngest son.
"I wish I could reverse the universe," Ducarmel tells the translator as he wipes his eyes. "I wish it never happened at all."
Tew walks over to comfort Ducarmel, to tell him that the first fitting is often much harder on the parent than the child.
"He is going to do great," Tew says through an interpreter.
Within minutes, someone calls out that they have the shoes, a pair of used Buzz Lightyear sneakers that light up with every step. It's not clear whether Schneily recognizes the popular character from the children's movie "Toy Story," but he eagerly dons the new shoes.
With Tew's help, Schneily steps out into the courtyard to practice with his crutches and his leg, moving cautiously on the rocky ground. He seems perplexed by the leg and by Tew's instructions to walk heel-to-toe, the best way to mimic a natural step.
After a few tries, he starts to get the hang of it. The limb doesn't hurt him, he says. That's a good sign, although as he puts more weight on his residual limb, it could become very tender. All amputees have to be careful to avoid pressure points that cause skin breakdown and sores, which can lead to infection.
It'll take practice and time for his body to adjust, but Tew predicts that Schneily will be running within the week.
As the child grows, Tew promises that the clinic will be in place to lengthen the shank of his prosthetic limb or even to replace it every year or so. The goal of the project is to train Haitian physical therapists and technicians to help the region's amputees now and in the future.
"Infinity and beyond," Tew says, quoting Buzz Lightyear's famous catchphrase. "That's our slogan now."


Video Library: New Amputees - Prosthesis Help Needed
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Schneily's long road leads to a new leg









By JoNel Aleccia -  Mon Mar 22, 2010 9:57 AM EDT





DESCHAPELLES, Haiti -- Darline Similien climbs off the back of a motorcycle in the blazing morning sun and sweeps her youngest son, Schneily, into her arms, mindful of the 4-year-old's missing leg.
She sees visitors with cameras and pauses, shy about her appearance after a 5 1/2-hour road trip by bus and by bike. But Schneily just hugs her tighter.
"You're not ugly mama," the brown-eyed boy with a headful of braids says in lyrical Creole."You look nice, Mama."
It's been only four days since Darline has seen Schneily and his father, Ducarmel, but for the family on a desperate quest for a prosthetic limb to replace the boy's left leg, crushed in the earthquake, everything has changed.
Finally, they've made it to the Hopital Albert Schweitzer, where a group called the Haitian Amputee Coalition has begun providing free prosthetics for victims of the Jan. 12 temblor. It's Schneily's best hope for a better life, but getting the child to Deschapelles was anything but easy.
Msnbc.com first introduced readers to Schneily Similien, also spelled Cimilien, soon after the quake, as Ducarmel vowed to do anything to get his boy a limb.
Less than a week ago, the family got word that Schneily could get help, but only if he made it to the hospital, more than 80 miles from the tent city in Leogane, where the family has been living since the quake destroyed their home.
Transportation there for a single adult usually costs about 250 in gourdes, the Haitian currency. That's about $6 U.S., but far too pricey for a family with no work since the disaster and little money left to survive on.
"If I had to get here on my own, it would have been almost impossible," Ducarmel, a 40-year-old carpenter, said through an interpreter.
Instead, he found help from the Catholic Medical Mission Board, an aid group whose Haiti director lost her leg in an air crash several years ago while delivering medical supplies outside Port-au-Prince. Since the earthquake, Dr. Dianne Jean-Francois has made special effort to find help and comfort for amputees because she said she understands their needs.
"They are children, they are adults, they are men, they are women," she said. "So many. There was no difference. The earthquake hurt them all."
Through CMMB, Ducarmel got a ride for Schneily and himself, but there was a catch. Because the need is so great, aid groups limit transportation to the patient and a single guardian. Darline and their two other boys, Schmeider, 10, and Scarcely, 13, had to stay behind in Leogane, with little water or food.
Still, just after dawn last Thursday, the father and son boarded an SUV with five other amputees and five of their family members for the long trek through the rural countryside.
By Haitian standards, the road to Deschapelles, National No. 1, is a good one, winding past villages of tin-roofed shacks, fruit stands and ubiquitous lottery shacks where locals take a chance with 5 gourdes. But it's also both dusty and muddy, with deep ruts and potholes and cars racing dangerously fast in both directions, appearing to barely miss passersby -- or each other.
For HAS patients, the trip ends with a hard right turn on Dr. Mellon Road, a rocky, narrow street named for the hospital's founder, William Larimer Mellon, and into the hospital's courtyard.
For Ducarmel, every bump and jolt was worth it for the lively boy who's become a pro on crutches since his amputation less than a week after the quake. Schneily hops easily down concrete steps, across the uneven ground, sometimes roaming so far that his dad has to call him back. He's eager to make friends, rushing out to greet John Spinoza, a 10-year-old who's also missing a leg.
"He's ready to walk," Ducarmel says. "He wants to do it."
Within hours of his arrival at HAS, Schneily's leg was examined, measured and cast by Jay Tew, the prosthetics expert for Hanger Orthopedic Group, the American firm that's spearheading the effort.
Now, a tiny plastic-and-foam limb, just over 9 inches tall, is waiting for Schneily, who's the youngest amputee the crew has seen yet. Next he'll be fitted with the new leg. If all goes well, Schneily will be able to walk for the rest of his life.
Meanwhile, Darline couldn't stay away. The 37-year-old kindergarten teacher left the older boys with her mother in Leogane, and then pooled money from family and friends to pay for transportation to Deschapelles. She rode part of the way on the bus, and part on a motorcycle, ending her journey Sunday with a hug from her husband and son -- and new hope for the family's future.
"Every time I spoke to Schneily on the phone, he said, 'Come, mama, come," she said.
Schneily's parents are apprehensive about how he'll adjust to the new leg. Darline is worried he'll have an allergic reaction to the limb. Ducarmel isn't sure he'll actually be able to walk like a regular boy. But both know that this is a necessary step.
"It's very important that he get a foot," Ducarmel said. "We have to restore all of our lives."

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A child's hope for a new limb, new life


Four-year-old Schneily Similien's left leg was crushed in Haiti's earthquake.


By JoNel Aleccia
  -  
Fri Mar 19, 2010 6:01 AM EDT

By JoNel Aleccia, msnbc.com
Schneily Similien still needs a new leg.
The 4-year-old Haitian boy's left calf and foot were crushed when the Jan. 12 earthquake rocked his country and destroyed his house, sending pieces of concrete ceiling crashing down on the child and his family.
For five days, no medical care could be found in the wrecked capital city, Port-au-Prince, and by the time Schneily's parents, Ducarmel, 40, and Darline, 37, got him to a hospital, amputation was the only option.
Msnbc.com first introduced readers to Schneily Similien (also spelled Cimilien) soon after the quake, as prosthetics groups began assessing the staggering need in Haiti and Ducarmel vowed to do anything to get a limb for his boy.
"People tend not to take into account the needs of disabled people and it changes your life," Schneily's father said through a translator. "They don't consider you a whole person."
Two months after the horrible disaster that claimed at least 230,000 lives and left a million people homeless, Schneily remains among an estimated 4,000 to 6,000 amputees left to struggle in a rugged, impoverished land where if you don't work, you don't eat and there's little regard for the disabled.
His greatest hope for a new limb -- and a new life -- may lie at the Hopital Albert Schweitzer, an 80-bed oasis in the rural heart of Haiti, where the American prosthetic firm Hanger Orthopedic Group has set up an amputee rehabilitation center.
The Hanger crew, led by Jay Tew, 38, a volunteer prosthetics expert from Baton Rouge, La., has already fabricated and fit more than 60 limbs for Haitian amputees in the last month.
First though, Schneily has to get there.
The 60-mile trip from Port-au-Prince to the hospital in Deschapelles can take nearly four hours, even on relatively good roads. Schneily and his parents were left homeless by the quake and are now living in a tent in Leogane, a town 20 miles from the capital, aid workers say.
His father is a carpenter, but no one has bought furniture since the quake. His mother is a kindergarten teacher, but her school was destroyed in the disaster.  With little money and scarce aid, they've battled hunger along with their fears for Schneily's future.
Deschapelles, Haiti, is located about 60 miles north of Port-au-Prince.
Msnbc.com is heading to Haiti to track the story of Schneily and other amputees as they work to build new lives. Our crew will arrive in Port-au-Prince today and travel to Deschapelles, where we'll file daily dispatches about the urgent effort.
Along the way, we'll explore the issue of amputation, a growing problem sparked by violence, disaster and disease not just in Haiti, but around the world.
We'll talk to amputee veterans of the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan about what it means to live without a limb, and share their advice for amputees in Haiti. We'll reach out to our readers as well, publishing your thoughts on what it takes to recover from tragedy and build a new life worth living.
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Video Library: New Amputees - Prosthesis Help Needed



Four-year-old Schneily Similien is back home, living in a tent in the courtyard of the destroyed house where he was hurt in Haiti's devastating earthquake. The magnitude-7 quake sent pieces of a second-floor concrete ceiling crashing down on the child's lower left leg and foot. Nearly four months after losing his leg, he's learning to use an artificial limb and adjusting to a new normal.









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