‘There’s No One To Help’
Gladewater native travels to Haiti for relief effort
Growing up in Gladewater, Brandon Kegarise said he always knew
he wanted to be a doctor. He always heard how much money doctors make
as they help people recover from illnesses. But after a recent trip to
Haiti with a medical relief organization, Kegarise said, “it’s
not about the money anymore.”
By Aaron May
Staff Writer
Kegarise returned Feb. 20 from a week-long trip to Haiti, where he assisted
a group of doctors and nurses with surgeries and other medical treatments
in the aftermath of the massive earthquake, which struck the island nation
in January.
Kegarise said seeing the devastation and the poor living conditions of the
Haitian people “really opened my eyes.”
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| Longview surgeons Ben Mack (left) and Robert Shirley, along with other
East Texas physicians, and nurses recently traveled to Haiti to donate
their much-needed services in the wake of the country’s disastrous
earthquake. |
“I thought I’d seen a lot, with my parents being foster parents,
but no. I’m certainly more appreciative of the things I got,” he
said. “It opened my eyes just seeing how other people have to live
and there’s no one there to help them. When you think about it, it’s
sad because people here in America live like that, but we have programs here
to help them. But over there, there’s no one to help.”
Kegarise said he found out about he was able to go on the trip just one
week prior to leaving for Haiti. His aunt put him in contact with Dr. Robert
Shirley, a surgeon who works with Good Shepherd and Regional medical centers
in Longview. Shirley, along with the disaster relief group called Global
Operations Division coordinated the trip.
“We really didn’t have anything planned,” he said. “We
had a meeting at Dr. Shirley’s house the Wednesday before we left – we
left on a Friday – and he said a few hours before the meeting he had
a definite flight to Florida. From Florida, we flew on an MSI flight to Haiti.
It was a cargo plane.”
After a four hour flight to the devastated island, Kegarise remembers being
picked up in a large box-truck, similar to a moving van, to be taken to the
hospital, where they would stay.
“The first day we were there, we got to the hospital about six o’clock
and within a couple hours, Dr. Mack and Dr. Shirley were already operating.
It was the first surgery I’d ever seen in person. It was amazing,” he
said.
He watched and assisted the doctors as they performed various operations,
including appendectomies, hernias and baby deliveries.
Kegarise said, “Before the earthquake, the hospital where we were
held 35 patients. After the earthquake, on the grounds of the hospital, there
were over 2,000 people – both volunteers and patients.”
He said the majority of the patients had to stay outside in camping tents
because there was no room in the building. While the tents set up by the
hospital were “decent,” he said the city was full of improvised
shelters.
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| GHS alumni Brandon Kegarise joined the team in an experience that “really
opened my eyes.” Courtesy photos |
“You’ve seen pictures of the tent cities, but the tents that
they made were pretty much anything that they could get their hands on,” he
said. “They broke limbs off of trees and stuck them in the ground as
posts. Some people were fortunate enough to have tarps to lay over the sticks.
But many had to use whatever they could get their hands on – sheets,
cardboard – and it rained every night. They are about to have a monsoon
season coming up.
“It’s sad because it’s another human being having to live
that way, but for the most part it’s children having to live that way
too and they don’t know any better,” he continued. “No
one knows any better because I guess that’s how they were raised.”
In the midst of such destruction and devastation, one would expect a heightened
sense of anger, but to Kegarise's surprise, the people responded in a completely
different manner.
“It’s hard to describe it in words. When we were driving in,
you don’t really see anybody crying or anything like that,” he
said. “They were very religious people. This happened for a reason
to them. God has a plan for them and this is all just part of his plan. They’re
upset, but you couldn’t tell. They were very happy people; happy to
see us, very friendly and very religious.
“When we walked through the hall [of the hospital] to go to help someone,
they’d ask ‘are you Christian?’ They just wanted to know
what your beliefs are,” he added. “There was one little boy,
they were trying to stick an I.V. in him and he was just screaming and saying
something in Creole. The doctors asked the translators what he was saying
because they wanted to make sure he was okay. The translator said he was
asking for God to help him, saying ‘Jesus help me.’ That just
shows they were very religious even from adults to the younger children.”
Kegarise said a speaker system outside the hospital would play religious
music all day and a preacher would preach in Creole from a local chapel.
“You think that if something like that happened, it’d test somebody’s
religion, but no. They were made strong by it,” he said. “This
happened for a reason. It was part of God’s plan. We talked to one guy
on my last night [in the country]. He was saying that he didn’t understand
why he lived through the earthquake, but he knows that God has a plan...
...Continued in this week's edition of The Gladewater Mirror.
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