Adventist World Aviation provides help to Haiti Submitted by ADVENTIST WORLD AVIATION
SMITHFIELD — On July 7, the President of Haiti, Jovenel Moïse, was assassinated in his home. This further destabilized the struggling country, which contends with the escalation in gang violence, food insecurity and numerous socio-economic challenges. Five weeks later on Aug. 14, a 7.2 magnitude earthquake struck the Tiburon Peninsula of Haiti, approximately 77 miles west of the Haitian capital, Port-auPrince. The country is struggling to deal with the devastation and poverty. A few days after the earthquake struck Haiti, a small medical professional team from the Gideon Response Company mobilized and poised in Florida, ready to deploy into Haiti when transportation plans changed. Jessica, a GRC responder, called Adventist World Aviation based at Johnston Regional Airport, thinking
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perhaps AWA was already responding to Haiti and could assist the GRC team too. As Bruce Wilkerson, assistant vicepresident of project development and former AWA missionary project manager, listened to the needs and plans of GRC, he could hear that still small voice whispering, “Go and help.” “God selected the perfect AWA pilot for the mission,” Wilkerson said. Bob Hugel, AWA mission volunteer from Johnston County, had flown his four-seater single engine Piper Comanche to the Bahamas many times before. Hugel was able and willing, but a little apprehensive about the trip since there were many unknowns with the devastation in Haiti. This made it difficult to get information for proper flight planning. “Bruce was encouraged by Bob’s desire and faith and felt that God would indeed bless this work,” Wilkerson said. In a few days Hugel and Wilkerson landed with two GRC team members
in Port-au-Prince. Wilkerson said he was blessed to have the opportunity to join the GRC team as they were inserted by helicopter into in Les Cayes, on the southern peninsula of Haiti, where they began responding to the needs at the Ofatma Hospital and the catastrophestricken communities in the region. Wilkerson was stunned at the earthquake’s devastation and sheer destruction, which complicated an already impoverished area. The Ofatma Hospital suffered serious structural damages, so the kitchen behind the hospital was converted into a surgical suite and pre-op was a tent while post-op and the ward were established in the corridors near the courtyard. The surgeons during the augmentation were from a Jewish team responding from Mexico, augmented by GRC nurses, other responders and Haitian doctors. Medications such as anesthesia and antibiotics were in short supply
