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Partner stories: |
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Cracked world, shattered lives
Interserve Partner Laurel talks about her experiences in Pakistan six days after the earthquake |
Traveling
On the trip up to the field hospital we saw numerous accidents: smashed ambulances, vans crushed by huge lorries, private family cars collided with buses, a large Bedford truck lying on its side in the middle of the road – we almost ran into another truck stopped with no lights or warning in the center of our traffic lane. Pakistani drivers usually able to swerve instantly to avoid almost any collision are distracted. We all are.
The devastation didn’t seem as bad as expected from the road to the regional hospital; many buildings are still standing.
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Off the main road, though, many collapsed roofs, crumbled stone walls, and flattened mud houses come into view. In addition, inside the standing buildings deep cracks show that the buildings have been severely affected. Local families refuse to enter their homes even to remove needed blankets or food, because tremors continue to threaten further damage. Anyone who has seen a person crushed by a massive cement pillar or trapped under layers of debris, anyone who has narrowly escaped from a collapsed building, of course will be reticent to enter any standing structure. |
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Shocked and Silent
When I examined one little girl who had come from a distant village, she had a fractured arm and collarbone. We couldn’t do the x-ray because the mobile unit wasn’t working… extremely difficult because 85% of these injuries are orthopedic ones.
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The man who had accompanied her in explained to me why she seemed so shocked and silent: 11 people in her immediate family died in one day. I laid my hand on her head and prayed for her and wished I could absorb some of that grief for her. |
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No Time
The regional hospitals also became structurally unsound after the earthquake, so the patients have been shifted to tents and to the intact staff hostel buildings. Most local hospitals are operating at far beyond double their normal census. Teams of doctors have poured in to help, but the press of waiting and incoming patients overwhelms the facilities. Taxis come every minute with new injured. No one has time to clean the mud and blood that has accumulated on the “ward” floors. The operating theatres that are still intact are mobbed. Dozens of patients wait for surgery, moaning or crying out in pain. Nurses and doctors try to comfort the bereaved while offering medical care. Distant cities render aid, international agencies send teams, local neighbors and relatives
help with transportation, digging out rubble and |
care of orphaned children. Trucks full of supplies stand fully loaded by the road. But with every day that passes, the organization improves.
Doctors are surrounded by supplicants, thrusting x-rays towards them, pulling on their white coats, crying out in pain… Children with unspeakable injuries, parts of their tiny bodies simply gone(!) waiting for the pediatric surgical set to arrive. Twisted femurs. Open, green-coated wounds: by now not only are incoming wounds infected, often gangrene has set in. One evening we brought with us a 10-year-old girl whose fingers were black and stank of death. The receiving orthopedic surgeon took her immediately to the operating theatre. She had come 60 km, most of that on foot or carried by a relative. |
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Where are you going?
There has been no way to evacuate the patients. Even if there were 100 helicopters, they couldn’t reach everyone in time and the landing pad would be impossibly overloaded. The disaster is too great. Patients who waited many hours under rubble to be noticed have crush injuries and complicated fractures. One woman made eye contact with me as she was carried from her car to the mobile x-ray facility. She couldn’t bear weight on her leg. A short while later, |
x-ray in hand, her husband loaded her back in her car. I called out to him, “Where are you going?” “Back to the village” he replied. “What about her leg?” “It’s fine.” “Let me see the x-ray!” Sure enough, she had two fractures around the knee joint. We sent her back for a cast. The pelvic fractures come repeatedly: “The wall fell on her” or “He lay under the rubble for 25 hours.” |
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A gift in the middle of tragedy
One morning an excited man came running to get me “It’s a delivery case!”. We grabbed some cotton towels, gloves and sutures, then unloaded the mother from the Suzuki taxi. She lay down on a wooden |
platform on the cotton towels and soon afterward delivered a healthy baby girl. Thank you Lord! It was the high point of my day, such gifts in the middle of such tragedy. |
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Long tiring hours
Many of the local medical personnel and most able-bodied residents have fled the area. The remaining 4–5 doctors labor under significant psychological stress, exhausted but dedicated and thankful to be able to help. Medical students from Peshawar and these doctors worked for 48 hours without food or water. No one intended their Ramadan fast to be |
that long! Some have lost relatives and others have not yet seen their families. To add to the uncertainty and anxiety, tremors continue to shake and don’t seem to be decreasing in intensity. In fact, last night three significant tremors shook the car where I was trying unsuccessfully to sleep. |
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| Even with a borrowed UN sleeping bag the cold penetrated deeply. What is happening in the hidden valleys, behind the mountains and beyond the treacherous landslides? Thousands may still survive in the inaccessible Kaghan valley, injured, hungry, thirsty, bereaved and cold. Helicopters cycle in and out bringing supplies but there are so many villages, six days into the tragedy, that as yet have seen no help, no doctor, no blanket, no water, no food, no medicine and no shelter. In some villages not one building is still standing. No one has even been able to evaluate some of these areas, although the army continues dropping food and supplies by plane and helicopter. Is anyone there uninjured and able to receive these drops? Today several small teams went |
out by foot, beyond the blocks, to deliver tents, Tomorrow two private helicopters will run teams and supplies to as yet unreached areas. Meanwhile I pray for the unreached victims.
As is always the case, looting, selfishness and impatience complicate the already confused efforts of distribution. Personnel are willing and available but must be sent.
In the meantime, I pray for the living who are still trapped and afraid. Comfort them, Lord. Help us know where to go. Give us grace, soft hearts and listening ears to hear where you are working. |
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| Other Partner stories & snapshots |
Pakistan newsflash & prayer pointers |
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Click here to link to reports made around the time of the earthquake, prayer requests and donation information. |
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