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Injured Haiti earthquake victims stream across border to Dominican Republic for medical attention

BY Erica Pearson
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Friday, January 15th 2010, 12:11 AM

Maisel/News

Agony is written all over face of Haitian woman yesterday as she holds injured boy at Dominican Republic hospital, where hundreds of casualties sought treatment.

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JIMANI, Dominican Republic – The walking wounded are pouring across the Haitian border into this small Dominican town that’s playing a big role saving lives.

Helicopters, ambulances and even pickup trucks are bringing hundreds of injured earthquake victims to a Jimani hospital, where doctors are performing everything from amputations to abdominal surgeries.

“There have been more than 500 today – so, so many,” said exhausted anesthesiologist Gilberto Rojas, 50, who is from Santo Domingo.

“We have been doing so many amputations, seeing so many people with abdominal trauma,” Rojas said.

He said Dominicans are doing all they can to comfort and care for their neighbors.

“We share an island. They are our brothers,” said Rojas, who had worked on at least 50 surgeries yesterday at the overflowing hospital.

Children were rushed in screaming for their parents, and people with crushed limbs were being treated while sprawled on the blood-spattered tile floor.

One man cried in agony as a group of doctors tried to move his pulverized foot.

There wasn’t enough time or space to put them on cots, said Dominican Red Cross volunteers.

Jean Pierre Mou was waiting quietly for surgeons to work on his 11-year-old daughter, Pialice, whose chest and legs were covered with deep puncture wounds.

“The walls of our house just fell down on top of her,” Mou said, looking down at the bandages on her chest.

A room usually used to hold newborn babies was instead filled with children lying on cots next to catheters.

“It is so, so sad, there are so many people that even the floor is covered,” said Ana Edwanne, 23, a volunteer from Jimani, who was translating from Creole to Spanish for patients.

Edwanne said doctors had helped a frightened Haitian woman, Simone Jean, 28, give birth to a healthy baby boy.

She had gone into labor across the border and was rushed to the Jimani hospital.

Jean could barely speak, as she lay with her baby.

“He doesn’t have a name yet,” Jean’s relieved sister said.

Felicemente Rosme looked over at her 2-month-old son, Ronaldo, who was hit by falling cement blocks when the quake struck.

“He’s finally eating,” said a relieved Rosme, whose shoulder was bandaged.

Outside, a crowd of Haitians rushed toward the doors and gathered down the block, desperate to hear how their loved ones were doing.

“It has been like this all day,” said Luis Zepeda, 21, one of the baby-faced soldiers guarding the hospital with a machine gun.

Luis Antonio Luna Paulino, director of the Dominican civil defense, has been leading Jimani-based teams into Port-au-Prince to search for survivors to bring back to the hospital.

“It is a disaster zone, people are destroyed,” he said. “People are dragging the dead out into the street. So many are dying, trapped.”

epearson@nydailynews.com