A pair of Hoboken women with no prior training in disaster relief headed into the rubble of Haiti last month. Spurred by Anderson Cooper’s reporting on CNN and assisted by Facebook, they gathered a crew of medical professionals from across the nation and supplies from local donors and flew to the Caribbean determined to help the men, women, and children of the impoverished island nation crushed by a severe earthquake.
Next month, some members of their crew will return to provide whatever assistance they can, and they are again asking the community for help.
Allergies to amputees
Until its sale a few months ago, Dr. Muni Tahzib was treating children at Hoboken Allergy and Asthma, her pediatric practice on Hudson Street. Last month, she was delivering babies in Haiti.
A Hoboken resident since 2001, Tahzib now spends her days tending to her children. But after hearing the pleas of Anderson Cooper following the earthquake in Haiti, something clicked and she decided it was time to spring into action.
“When I first saw the wound, I was going to throw up.” – Maryanne Fike
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Within days, she was tending to seriously injured Haitians.
Meanwhile, flying back from Tokyo to Hoboken, Maryanne Fike, a resident of the mile-square city since 1985, was seeing the same devastating images on the television that Tahzib, her friend, was seeing back in Hoboken.
Fike, who works in commercial aviation financing, was returning from a speech before the Japanese National Diet, their parliament. Upon seeing the suffering of the earthquake victims, she thought to herself: “I’ve got to go to Haiti.”
As soon as she got home, she updated her Facebook with the same statement. She noticed Tahzib had just posted moments earlier: “I want to go to Haiti.”
She had found a travel partner.
Getting across the border
The earthquake occurred on Tuesday, Jan. 12, and by Sunday, Jan. 17, Tahzib and Fike had made up their mind.
They reached out to the Red Cross, then Doctors Without Borders and other charitable organizations, but were denied admittance because they had neither the disaster relief experience, nor several months to dedicate to the organization.
“You want to help, but you don’t want to be a burden,” Fike said.
But their determination to help was not at all diminished.
Fike made several phone calls and, with the help of friends, was able to secure a ride into Haiti with a United Nations convoy from the Dominican Republic, a nation that shares an island with Haiti.
Tahzib and Fike sent out word on Facebook to friends that they were heading into the devastation and that they were welcoming donations for the relief efforts.
The next day they started getting calls from complete strangers. Orthopedic surgeons from Los Angeles and Texas, a gynecologist from San Francisco, a pediatrician from Long Island, and other medical staff from around the nation told Tahzib and Fike the same thing: We’re in.
Packages show up on Hudson Street
Packages of supplies started showing up on Tahzib’s stoop on Hudson Street, like 2,000 antibiotic pills from a local woman who went to every pharmacist in town asking for donations.
The sheer volume of the charity from Hoboken and beyond overwhelmed the two of them, and it even caught the eye of Tahzib’s neighbor, Barbara Bravo.
“Is Muni purging her house again?” Bravo recalled thinking of the stockpile. After finding out about the private mission, she offered her help packing all of the supplies. But within days, she decided she was going to be on the plane to the Caribbean too.
Bravo’s first thought was to fly down and help with the baggage, but eventually she found herself amidst the crumbled buildings of Haiti quickly learning how to take blood pressure readings with a fetal heart monitor.
Outside Port-au-Prince
Their group of 19 landed in the Dominican Republic and they rented a bus, not wanting to wait for the UN convoy. The three Hoboken women alone brought more than 10 bags each.
Coming into Haiti, the women said, it was a moving experience seeing the volunteers coming together, as well as the destruction.
“I could cry just thinking about it,” Bravo said during the emotional interview.
Doctors were pitching tents outside the collapsed hospitals and injured Haitians were walking for days to find medical help.
The group was offered space in a Baha’i school facility. Fike and Tahzib practice the Baha’i faith, an ancient religion that emphasizes spiritual unity of all mankind.
The group also visited several other sites where earthquake survivors stood in line all day for medical attention. The injured would line up at 6 a.m. and stand outside until the sun went down, when the doctors – without proper lighting – would pack it in for the night.
Fike had a steep learning curve when she was assigned to bandaging duty.
“When I first saw the wound, I was going to throw up,” she said.
But Tahzib said that Fike’s hesitation didn’t show, and she instantly got to work.
Babies born in the street
Screaming mothers were delivering babies naked in the streets without a doctor in sight. The group delivered a few babies and scrounged for supplies for the newborns. They visited an orphanage one day and fed the entire camp with food provided by the people of Hoboken.
“I was so moved,” Tahzib said, especially after seeing children eating charcoal and dirt because food was so scarce.
Their last day in Haiti, they headed toward the epicenter in a vehicle – like “whitewater rafting over rubble,” Bravo said – and saw over 500 patients. Bravo said it was amazing how the severely injured were not crying out in pain, like a small girl who had a broken femur that had not been cared for in nearly two weeks since the blast.
A nine-year-old boy leaning on a stick had dragged himself miles to see a doctor. When the orthopedist examined him, they found that both pelvic bones had been fractured.
“There were fractures everywhere,” Tahzib said. “Not to mention that he lost his family [in the quake].”
“The dignity of these children,” Fike said. “The resilience.”
Various ways you can donate locally
Tahzib and Fike call their group “Love for Haiti,” and they can be found on Facebook or at www.love-for-haiti.com.
The women were moved by the relief experience, and are planning a return trip to Haiti on Wednesday, March 3. After all the help they provided, Tahzib said, she felt somewhat guilty coming home.
“We went back to our rich lives in Hoboken,” she said, “but we need to go back [to Haiti].”
They are accepting donations, especially large heavy-duty duffel bags; pain killers like Tylenol; Neosporin; bandages; anti-fungal creams like Lotrimin; baby formula; rice cereal; and tents. Donations of airline miles would also be appreciated.
For more information about donating to Love for Haiti, call Tahzib at (917) 287-1729, or drop your donation at 710 Hudson St. or the Hudson Reporter office, 1400 Washington St.
Hoboken Dance Academy is hosting an event on Sunday, Feb. 28 to raise money for crutches and canes for the women to take back with them. The event is at the All Saints Church at 1:30 p.m. Tickets will be available at the door.
For more information on this event, call (201) 963-2001.
Tahzib, Fike, and Bravo are also sharing a talk and slideshow of their Haitian experience at St. Matthews Parish Hall, Eighth and Washington streets, on Thursday, Feb. 18 at 7:30.
Timothy J. Carroll may be reached at tcarroll@hudsonreporter.com.