Another stirring story from Haiti

Today at 3:05pm
MAF pilots were scheduled to fly a team of doctors to Pignon, Haiti, early in the morning on January 22. The night before the flight, someone called and canceled the reservation.

Despite the fact that the flight had been canceled, the doctors arrived at the airport around 9:00 AM, requesting to fly to Pignon. Will, an MAF pilot, told them they would have to wait until another previously scheduled flight to the Island of Lagonave had been completed.

The rest of this story is Will's personal account about the amazing events that followed.

"We had arranged to fly to the Island of Lagonave. We were dropping off food supplies and picking up a team that was inspecting the Wesleyan hospital for damage from the earthquake.

When we arrived, Dan Irvine, the director of the mission, said he had a 9 year old girl that had BOTH feet crushed in the earthquake. The hospital on the island had done all they could and they needed to find an orthopedic doctor in Port-au-Prince (PAP) for surgery. According to Dan, her feet looked like "ground beef". If infection set in, it could be fatal. I agreed to transport the girl back to PAP.

On the return flight I began to think about how we were going to get help for this little girl. Knowing the huge strain on the field hospitals in PAP, I was not hopeful of the girl finding an ortho unit to operate on her. Then I started to think about the doctors that were waiting for me in PAP. I seemed sure they said they were orthopedic surgeons.

When we arrived in PAP, I taxied to my parking place and ALL of the doctors were standing right next to the plane with all their supplies. I told Dan I thought that they were an ortho team and introduced them to each other.

In no time the team was examining the girl and making plans to take her directly to the Pignon hospital. We removed the girl from the plane to fuel and they were able to start an IV and examine her more.

After loading the plane, I was able to fly 3 doctors, the girl and her mother to Pignon.

It was so exciting to see how God worked the events of the day to bring these two groups together. I was humbled to be a part of it."