Horror in Haiti

Contributed Auburn Villager A street scene in Haiti.

After the earthquake that devastated their country earlier this month, Haitians used doors as stretchers to carry people and hotel bed sheets as bandages. They made wooden splints for broken bones, drinking water was used to wash out wounds, and sofas and lawn chairs were used as cushions. Everything was makeshift because of the lack of proper supplies, said Dennis Shannon, an associate professor in the department of agronomy and soils at Auburn University who was in Haiti on Jan. 12, when a magnitude 7.0 earthquake devastated millions and took the lives of tens of thousands of people.

After the quake, Shannon slept outside on the ground by the hotel pool. Someone brought a 5-year-old boy, bleeding with a gash on his head. Shannon said the boy was conscious and not crying. In fact, he said very few of the wounded were crying, and most everyone was calm.

Shannon's traveling companion started working on the boy. When dark hampered his efforts, the man instructed people with cars to point their headlights at him so he could help the boy.

"It was kind of overwhelming, and I felt that we needed doctors, but there were none," Shannon said. "I was concerned that they weren't getting any medical help. We had no communications. The Internet and cell phones were down."

Shannon stayed in Haiti until Saturday, helping out by running errands. Unlike many Americans caught in the chaos, Shannon spoke Haitian French.

"By that Friday I was seeing some pretty bad infections," he recalled. "A woman who had a brick fall on her face was cut all the way through the skin. The first time I saw it, I said I couldn't handle it and a doctor needed to see that. Unfortunately, a doctor didn't see it. I saw her again Friday morning and the wound had turned white were it was supposed to be red, and it smelled. I cleaned it up a little."

Shannon finally found a doctor to help the woman, but she was an obstetrician fresh out of medical school.

Shannon said he was dismayed by the slow reaction to the disaster and thought aid was not being distributed fast enough. He has suggested the U.S. military needed to take control.

"I know the embassy was aware of what was going--we never saw any aid for anyone," he said.

Doctors without Borders, an international medical corps, was on the ground immediately, and the U.S. Air Force did a good job of flying supplies into Port-au-Prince, but distribution was problematic.

"When you have a humanitarian crisis like that, you need to get on the ground with medicines and medical care, and that didn't happen," he said.

"I think they probably still need doctors and nurses to go down and volunteer their services in Haiti and get more medicines out."

Shannon had arrived in Haiti on Jan. 11, just 24 hours before the quake hit the poverty-stricken country. He had come to the country to plan for testing of soils for fertilizer recommendations.

"I was waiting to exchange some money so I could go out to eat at night," Shannon said. "Then there was this rumbling noise--I didn't pay much attention, but then it started to get louder and louder. Dr. Ed Hammond from the University of Florida said ‘earthquake! Everybody get out!' I started hearing clattering noises and the ground started rumbling."

Shannon said he had experienced slight tremors before, but nothing on the scale of the earthquake that destroyed his hotel.

"It sounded like a freight train, and then I heard popping noises," he said. "There was a big concrete beam in the center of the hotel that came down as we came out."

Shannon ran downstairs and decided that it would be best to find an open space. He fell twice and collided with a post before finally settling in a grassy area outside.

Shannon did not leave the hotel area for the rest of the day.

"I felt there was little I could do at that point," he said.