Jay Tew, a prosthetics expert with Hanger Orthopedics Group holds the prosthetic lower leg being made for 4-year-old Haiti amputee Schneily Similien. Tew and his crew at the Hopital Albert Schweitzer are working around the clock to create limbs for victims of the January earthquake.

By JoNel Aleccia

  -  

Sun Mar 21, 2010 11:13 AM EDT

DESCHAPELLES, HAITI -- Seventy-three legs, 12 arms.

If anyone's counting, that's how many prosthetic limbs Jay Tew of Baton Rogue, La., has turned out for earthquake amputees in Haiti in the past three weeks.

The 38-year-old clinician and his crew have been working dawn to dark at the Hopital Albert Schweitzer, an 80-bed medical center more than 60 miles from the country's capital city, Port-au-Prince.

In a clinic housed in a converted classroom, Tew has been fitting, forming, sanding, painting and testing limb after limb for the steady stream of amputees who've made it to the rural outpost.

"I don't think we're going to stop seeing new patients for some time," said Tew, a regional manager for Hanger Orthopedic Group. "They say there may be hundreds of people here once the flood gates open up."

With the help of U.S. prosthetic maker Hanger, the rural hospital founded by American philanthropist William Larimer Mellon, Jr. is rapidly becoming a center for rehabilitation -- and hope -- for Haiti's amputees.

"If I can say there's an oasis in Haiti, we're in it," says Tew, glancing around the spare clinic with its cinder block walls and cement floors that wouldn't normally constitute luxury.

So far, the hospital has been able to manufacture and deliver vital prosthetic limbs for men, women and children, patients who test their new arms and legs by dancing to music and kicking soccer balls each evening

On a hot, humid evening, more than 30 patients and their family members lounged on the porches of eight small block houses in L'Escale, an area set aside to shelter amputees who have nowhere else to go.

They laughed and chatted in animated Haitian Creole, teasing, telling stories and calling greetings to passersby. One 10-year-old boy raced to see how fast he could get across the stony ground on the crutches he'll use until his new leg is ready.

"One doesn't have right leg, one doesn't have a left leg, one doesn't have a hand," said Ian Rawson, the HAS director. "They're all there together, playing music. They've created a lovely community."

It's a community forged out of tragedy and need. Even before the earthquake, an estimated 40,000 to 64,000 Haitians were so disabled by trauma or disease they needed prostheses, leg braces or other rehabilitation services, said Robert Kistenberg, who heads the U.S. chapter of the International Society for Prosthetics and Orthotics. The earthquake added another 4,000 to 6,000 amputees to the toll in an instant, according to estimates by the aid group Handicap International and the Haitian government.

"In Haiti, they were not able to meet the needs of the people even before the earthquake," Kistenberg said.

That's where Tew and his staff come in. They volunteered to spend three months at HAS, fabricating and fitting limbs as part of Hanger's pledge to create an ongoing rehabilitation program training Haitian technicians and treating amputees now and in the future.

Patients and family members wait outside of the Hopital Albert Schweitzer in Deschapelles, Haiti.

"The key is a sustainable center," said Tew. "It's not to come in and make a lot of legs and leave."

A father of three girls ages 8, 10 and 12, Tew said he did not hesitate when Hanger asked him to go. In fact, he'd already discussed the possibility with his wife, Shannon, as they watched early television coverage of the earthquake.

"I looked at Shannon and I said, 'I'm going to Haiti,' and she said, 'Yes, I know you are.'"

For her part, Shannon Tew, 40, said she couldn't deny the need, or her husband's desire to help. A graduate of Northwestern University's Prosthetics-Orthotics program, Tew had previously volunteered to help amputees in Mexico and is considered an expert in the treatment of military amputees.

"I think it's all he could ever think of and dream of doing," Shannon Tew said.

It's part of a larger dream for HAS, too.

Founded in 1956 by a son of one of America's wealthiest families, the hospital has logged a half-century history of ministering to the medical and social needs of the poorest residents of Haiti's Central Plateau.

Mellon, heir to the Andrew Mellon family banking and oil fortunes, started the hospital after becoming enthralled in midlife with the medical missionary work of Albert Schweitzer.

Dr. Ian Rawson, director of Hopital Albert Schweitzer in Deschapelles, Haiti.

Mellon and his second wife, Gwen Grant Mellon, worked out a deal with the Haitian government to take over an abandoned fruit plantation in the rugged Artibonite River Valley. The hospital became the hub for care for the region of about 300,000 people, where poverty and disease are rampant.

It's a legacy now assumed by Rawson, 70, one of Gwen Mellon's three children from a previous marriage. Rawson retired from a career as a hospital system administrator in Pennsylvania to take over where his mother left off.

His task has been magnified by the aftermath of the quake, which may propel rural HAS into becoming a central player in the nation's reconfigured health care system. Haiti's president, Rene Preval, has called for decentralizing the country's infrastructure for health, education and jobs. Under such a plan, HAS would become one of eight rehabilitation centers around the country.

"This is the hardest work we've ever done," Rawson said of the months since Jan. 12. "But it's the most rewarding."

Old hippie lifeguard turned hero for Haiti Jim Goodnow pops open the side of an ambulance, where he's been sleeping for the past two months. "Let's see what's behind door number one!" the ponytailed 70-year-old hollers.

Inside, it looks like the Grateful Dead decided to run a hospital. There are 20 sets of crutches piled up, four wheelchairs, an x-ray machine, and enough bottled water to hydrate a small village. Plus a bunch of teddy bears and spiritual art.

Goodnow, who patrolled Miami Beach in 1959, put his life on hold when the quake hit Haiti. He bought a cheap ambulance, packed up his things, and drove from Texas to Miami thinking he could do some good. He got donations from friends he made along the way: boisterous firemen, a wealthy dentist, a good-natured mechanic. His supplies range from portable toilets to oxygen tanks.

Now in Miami, there's only one problem: No agency will accept the aid. He has tried the Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders, and Partners in Health. "It's a big boondoggle," he says. "This machine could save lives."

As donations to Haiti taper off — and heavy spring rains swamp homeless camps on the island — Goodnow plans to hitch a ride on a cargo ship based in Riviera Beach. It will cost him $2,070, and he's fundraising to pay the fare.

Spokesperson Cynthia Gutierrez says the Red Cross can't accept the goods because storing, sorting, and shipping them isn't the best use of time and money. She adds that donations have dropped in the past month.

Standing a few blocks from Biscayne Bay, Goodnow stares at the water as if it just called his name. "I'm talking about the first in a fleet of ships," he says. "I won't let this stop me."

http://www.miaminewtimes.com/2010-03-25/news/hero-for-haiti-jim-goodnow-needs-a-ride-to-the-island

In addition, we have six (6) wheelchairs, eight (8) walkers, and more than twenty (20) pairs of crutches aboard the ambulance, all which were contributed in North Miami and Fort Lauderdale. Though we do not yet have any prosthetic or orthotic devices per se aboard, we would welcome the contribution of any prosthetic or orthotic devices for delivery in Haiti together with the vehicle.

In addition, a Washington, DC dentist contributed a valuable dental e-ray machine which is also aboard the ambulance.

There is a ship leaving for Haiti from Florida at the end of this month. The Haitian-American owner of the ship has offered Jim free passage for the ambulance to Haiti. We have already spent $700 for a good second-hand gurney, a special hydraulic air hose for inflating the ambulance tires in the likely event of flat tires from the glass and other debris left after the earthquake, plus some more to try to cover the $500-plus he spent at a Walmart in Fort Lauderdale for emergency provisions to take with him in the ambulance (such as a special motor oil, funnels, needed tools, rubber gloves, face masks, paper towels, toilet paper, soap, hand wipes, and much more), he/we are getting it ready to roll to Haiti.

We were in the process of getting our two ambulances we purchased from the suburbs of Atlanta, from the county, cleaned and up-to-date on preventative maintenance during this harsh winter we were having here in DC.

During the harsh winter we experienced in Washington, DC, we were also in the process of getting the two ambulances we purchased on e-Bay from a suburban county near Atlanta, cleaned, into tip-top mechanical shape, brakes checked, equipped for a tropical climate, and tires readied for a ground surface strewn with broken glass.

After a couple of years and by law, county municipalities have to purchase new vehicles after they reach certain mileage limits even though these emergency trucks are still almost like new and in spectacular condition.

We had plans to use the vehicles as political platforms to inform on current issues around the District of Columbia and across the nation. Jim Goodnow, for decades, had been driving around a peace activist bus, the Yellow Rose of Texas Peace Bus, creating awareness in the political spectrum since the 70s, making friends and allies from coast to coast.

After a weekend in New Hampshire during the last presidential race, Jim pulled into a New Jersey truck stop on January 14, 2008 after the long drive and had just had a bite to eat. Before taking a brief rest in the back of the bus, he decided to quickly check the engine. When he raised the rear door, he suddenly faced a wall of flame which nearly engulfed him. A nearby trucker alerted the local fire department while other truckers ignored the potential danger of an exploding bus courageously using their portable fire-extinguishers, while one of them photographed the fire in progress. Both the fire department and Jim investigated the mysterious fire as a case of arson. But the bus was destroyed.


It was after this incident that Jim and his longtime friend Louis Wolf decided to find a new vehicle and found these two ambulances instead that they felt could be used as political platforms and then donated to a community that had nothing along the lines of medical EMS equipment due to economic and political forces out of their control. They had a few countries on their radar that had severe need of these. Then, the devastating earthquake hit the poorest country in the modern world's western hemisphere.

Jim and Louis suddenly decided they had to somehow get the two emergency emergency vehicles to Haiti.

Here is a letter from our friend Bernard with Perfect Retreat Near Vancouver Island which succinctly pulls together what we are trying to accomplish in his correspondence to the Governor General of Canada:

Dear Governor General

I write to you as a lover of the haitian people and the country that I was fortunate enough to visit on many occasions. I am a relative of the late Quebec Lieutenant Governor Paul Comtois.

I now live on the island of Galiano, between Vancouver and Vancouver island where my wife Line Marie and I own forest land and a small mill as well as Eagles Nest Retreat that we built with our own hands. You can view it at www.perfectretreat.com

We plan to fill two containers of termite resistant red cedar lumber , ship it to Haiti and go ourselves with a small team of volunteer builders for several months next year to build a number of simple houses for those in need.

However, I am writing to you for advise about a different and more urgent venture.

Passing through Miami this week, we met Mr. Jim Goodnow, a very enthusiastic and generous man who obtained at auction a 2006 top of the line and fully equipped and functioning ambulance that he would like to ship to Haiti.

The vehicle is of the highest quality and worth approximately two hundred thousand dollars new.

It is filled with donated equipment such as several wheelchairs,crutches, a dentistry Xray machine and other new or used but modern and fully functioning medical equipment.

However, he is encountering many administrative obstacles in his quest to find a suitable recipient.

The agencies that he contacted are not interested in receiving it as this donation is, incredibly, outside of their working perimeters.

Mr Goodnow has contacted the mayor of Delmas. This person is willing and anxious to receive the equipment but, there is a measure of ambiguity about the arrangement and of course, Mr. Goodnow wants the certitude that the ambulance and it's equipment will reach those most in need of it.

Mr. Goodnow has driven ambulances, buses and other heavy equipment all his life and is prepared to go to Haiti with the vehicle to teach it's new operators how to run and maintain it.

We do not anticipate difficulties in finding the $2700. needed to ship the ambulance to Port au Prince from Miami but would very much appreciate your input to find a reliable recipient, one who would put it to the service of those most in need.

Mr. Goodnow has access to a second ambulance as well as a fire truck that he would also like to donate to the haitian people.

A friend of Mr. Goodnow is launching a web site to help his cause. You can view it at www.dont4gethaiti.org

We will contact you at a later date for suggestions on how to put our own project to the best possible use in Haiti.

We can be reached at 1 888 454 8899 or at info@perfectretreat.com

Looking forward to hearing from you,

Warm regards

Line Marie St Jacques and Bernard Mignault

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — “Don’t cut off my leg!” Fabienne Jean screamed repeatedly as she was carried through the gates of the General Hospital here after the earthquake. “I’m a dancer. My leg is my livelihood. Please, don’t take my leg.”

After four days on the hospital’s cluttered grounds, lying among what she described as the “dead and living all mixed up,” Ms. Jean was wheeled into an operating tent where her crushed, infected right leg was amputated below the knee.

“It is a sad story,” Ms. Jean, 31, a slim, graceful woman who danced for the Haitian National Theater, said recently, massaging her bandaged stump. “But what can I do? I can’t kill myself because of this, so I have to learn to live with it.”

More than a month after the earthquake, thousands of new amputees are facing the stark reality of living with disabilities in a shattered country whose terrain and culture have never been hospitable to the disabled.

Some remain in hospital tents swarming with flies; others have moved to makeshift post-surgical centers; and those who healed quickly, like Ms. Jean, have been discharged to the streets, where they now live. All need continuing care in a nation with no rehabilitation hospital, few physical therapists, no central prosthesis factory since the quake and a skeletal supply of crutches, canes and wheelchairs gradually being reinforced by donations.

“The situation for newly disabled persons is very delicate,” said Michel Péan, Haiti’s secretary of state for the integration of the disabled. “They urgently need not only medical care but food and a place to live. Also, we cannot forget those disabled before the disaster who, because of their handicap, are having trouble getting access to humanitarian aid.”

Rough estimates of the number of new amputees are based on information from overburdened hospitals that did not keep good records of surgeries. The Haitian government believes that 6,000 to 8,000 people have lost limbs or digits. Handicap International estimates that 2,000 to 4,000 Haitians underwent amputations, and many thousands more suffered complicated fractures, some of which could turn into amputations if not managed well.

Dr. Péan, who is blind and serves in a relatively new post as government advocate for people with disabilities, said that Haiti’s disabled — some 8 percent of the population even before the quake — had long been treated as second-class citizens. But the government has recently taken legal steps to recognize their rights and opened offices to serve them in the countryside, he said.

Ideally, Dr. Péan said, post-earthquake reconstruction could provide an opportunity to make Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital, more accessible to people with disabilities and the impetus to create a national institute for rehabilitation.

For the moment, though, the urgent focus is on the uncertain present: making sure the thousands who underwent life-saving amputations have a future.

Handicap International, based in France, has been coordinating the postdisaster rehabilitation effort with CBM, a Germany-based Christian disability group, and with the Haitian government. Its volunteers — about five dozen therapists, nurses, technicians and community workers — have been providing postsurgical care and physical therapy at 12 hospitals here, and the organization is setting up a prosthetics workshop, too.

“We know that persons with injuries and disabilities are going through a difficult time right now, but they should not feel they’re alone,” said Aleema Shivji, an emergency response specialist with the group. “There are services available, and they’re increasing by the day.”

Recently, Caryn Brady, a physical therapist from Canada, made rounds through the sweltering postoperative tents outside the General Hospital. The patients there are being seen by such a revolving cast of international medical professionals, with charts so poorly kept that scribbled messages on bandaged stumps communicate the essentials: “See again on Feb. 23. Thanks. (Smiley face.)”

Bedside, Ms. Brady led Emmanuel Souverain, a university student whose right arm was amputated, through a series of exercises meant to prevent contractures and keep his muscles healthy for a prosthesis — although there is no plan yet to manufacture upper-body prosthetics.

Proceeding on to Mana Alexandre, 22, a double amputee in a white slip, Ms. Brady smiled when Ms. Alexandre showed off, bicycling her two leg stumps fiercely, a proud smile on her face. After more exercises, Ms. Alexandre moved, with the therapist’s guidance, into a wheelchair, but worried about how to get back into bed.

“Well,” her petite, dimple-faced mother, Evenie Belizaire, said, “I’ve been lifting you your whole life, with God’s help.”

Ms. Alexandre’s stumps dangled over the seat of the wheelchair. “At home, there are chairs with a padded extension that can slide out and provide support,” Ms. Brady said. “But maybe they can find a board?”

The need to adapt is challenging for all new amputees, but here newly discharged patients like Ms. Jean, the dancer, do not even have homes in which to recover or level, paved surfaces on which to plant their crutches or walkers.

On a recent afternoon, Ms. Jean sat on a plastic chair in front of her family’s new home, a small green tent on a rocky hillside. Her sister-in-law stood behind her, stroking Ms. Jean’s long, fine braids protectively as she spoke.

“Dancing was my hobby, my work, my passion, my everything,” Ms. Jean said. She dug out her purse and offered up a couple of photographs of herself in folkloric costume: one, a Judith Jamison-like pose, the other, a slinky Carnival performer. “That was me,” she said. “The before pictures.”

When her house shook violently on the day of the earthquake, Ms. Jean had been preparing to shower. She ran outside in her underwear, a towel wrapped around her waist, she said.

Standing beside a wall, she breathed in relief at having escaped before her home partly collapsed. And then the wall fell on top of her. Pulling herself out of the rubble, she found her leg snapped in two, bound it together with her towel and hopped back into her house to retrieve some clothes.

Ms. Jean does not remember who took her to the hospital, a scene of utter chaos. Two days later, a doctor promised to try to save her leg, she said, but she never saw him again. She lost her leg four days after the earthquake, and her emotions have oscillated since.

After 10 days, the hospital sent Ms. Jean to a makeshift rehabilitation center near the mass graves in Titanyen. An American prosthetics specialist, Dennis Acton, who examined her there, described the place as a kind of “squalid homeless shelter for amputees.”

From there, Ms. Jean was discharged, with a walker, to her doting family. Her father, Roigner Trazile, 48, dabbing at his eyes, said that his hope in life had been lost along with his dancing daughter’s leg.

“Before, when she actually had two legs, I thought she would become somebody, and then I would become somebody, too,” he said.

But, Ms. Jean said that “some foreigners” — Mr. Acton, actually, who was there with a team from New Hampshire — have promised her not only a regular prosthetic but a high-performance one, too, that could allow her to dance again.

“O.K.,” she said, smiling. “I am waiting.”

Video Library: New Amputees - Prosthesis Help Needed

Update: July 2010

If you can't donate, please send our site's link to a friend so that we get the word out and keep the plight of the Haitians in the news. Thanks!

Jim Goodnow and Louis Wolf bought two old second-hand  ambulances, a 2001 diesel Freightliner and a 2003 diesel Freightliner in very fine condition on E-Bay in 2009, originally to rent to film companies or alternatively for use as a mobile billboard for public relations work. Then when the 7.0 earthquake hit Haiti on January 12, we immediately took that as a sign to take the vehicles to Haiti for humanitarian purposes.

Following are two items for you - (a) photos of Jim with the ambulance, and (b) a January 28 video of the TV interview and article about the ambulance in the Fort Lauderdale] Sun-Sentinel. See both at: www.sun-sentinel.com/ambulance or at http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/broward/fort-lauderdale/fl-ambulance-haiti-20100128,0,6615698.story?page=1

Jim is temporarily in Florida with the two ambulances - see his photo with one of the vehicles, and also see the live interviews with him and read the article and see the video (links above). Though Jim does not use e-mail, his cell phone is: 432-294-3207 and he would be very glad to speak with you at any time.

Jim connected in person with Haitians and Haitian-Americans in the Miami area, nearly all of whom lost family members as a result of the earthquake. They collected more than seven pallets of new humanitarian medical supplies (mainly surgical equipment, wheelchairs, crutches,) for use in medical operations. Jim has meticulously gone through this material to make certain it is all clean, new, and not expired which could place already injured and vulnerable patients in jeopardy. This material has been loaded onto one of the ambulances.

In addition to the surgical equipment, we have six (6) wheelchairs, eight (8) walkers, and more than twenty (20) pairs of crutches aboard the ambulance, all which were contributed in the Miami and Fort Lauderdale areas. We would also welcome the contribution of any prosthetic or orthotic devices for delivery in Haiti together with the vehicles.

In addition, a Washington, DC dentist contributed a valuable dental      ex-ray machine which is also aboard the ambulance.

We have already spent several thousand dollars for good second-hand gurneys, installation of oxygen tanks for oxygen tanks, specialized hydraulic air hoses for inflating the ambulance tires in the likely event of flat tires from the debris left after the earthquake, plus emergency provisions to take in the ambulances (such as a special motor oil, funnels, needed tools, 4,000 pairs of rubber gloves, 1,200 face masks, paper towels, toilet paper, soap, hand wipes, and much more).


Jim is getting it ready to roll to Haiti. And we also need to budget for his roundtrip air fare from Miami to Haiti for Jim.

Please know we are accountable for each nickel spent in this endeavor, and Jim conscientiously keeps every single receipt.  Once there, Jim Goodnow and his Haitian associate intend to train a Haitian crew to use and maintain the ambulance. We have firm assurance from Haitian officials to facilitate secure delivery of the ambulance and its cargo.

We fervently hope this vehicle and its cargo of medical supplies will reach Haiti shortly, and if the mission is successful, we look to bring the second ambulance to Haiti as well, and to turn it over as well to a reliable Haitian body for humanitarian purposes.

As already indicated, we will work through a legal and reliable channel, a legally constituted 501(c)3 body so that financial and material contributions can be tax-deductible.

Until further notice, Jim Goodnow can be contacted directly here:
432-294-3207 (cell) [He does not use e-mail]. Or contact Louis Wolf or Jeffrey Long here: 202-362-1718 [Louis - louw7 at live.com or Jeffrey - dont4gethaiti at gmail.com.]

If you know anyone else who might want to contribute - perhaps someone with deep pockets, please share this with them. But with the oncoming shipping schedule, we are obviously on a very short timeline. Hopefully, folks will feel comfortable with this positive development - that their checks can be made out to and sent to a legal 501(c)3.

If you have any questions, please feel free to let Jim Goodnow know or contact one of us at the above listed contact information.

As you are aware, the reports are that people are starving now in Haiti as many are either under thin plastic sheeting or completely without tents under the hot tropical sun and with the annual rainy season underway, conditions on-the-ground are already very bad. Hurricane season is now upon them again. Last year, Haiti was slammed with four, back-to-back major hurricanes. Furthermore, the new amputees and other wounded are experiencing a lot of infections. There are many people dying every day.

Being an amputee myself and having the benefit of a functioning prosthetic leg since 2005, this mission means a great deal to me personally in light of the thousands of new Haitian amputees most of whose limbs (legs and arms) were removed entirely without the use of anesthesia due to the dire conditions after the earthquake struck Port-au-Prince. See the article "Countless Lost Limbs Alter Life in Haiti's Ruins" by Deborah Sontag, New York Times, February 23, 2010, page A1).