Recent history has given humanity brief glimpses into Mother Nature’s awesome ability to interrupt everyday living with natural disasters. Whether it’s the firestorms of 2003, Hurricane Katrina of 2005 or the Indian Ocean quake-triggered tsunami of 2004, devastating events change the lives of those affected.
The widespread destruction causes the entire world to rush to the aid of those in most need, delivering food and helping to rebuild homes, but often and most important, providing medical aid to suffering victims.
Nongovernmental organizations like International Relief Teams (IRT) collaborate with other volunteer organizations and foreign governments to aid in an organized fashion. Volunteers from around the globe take it upon themselves to use their expertise in the medical field to help out with the humanitarian efforts.
Two of the volunteers, registered nurses Evelyn Snyder and Suzanna Rudy from Pacific Beach, returned earlier this fall from a two-week humanitarian aid assignment in Indonesia, where they provided their services to those needing medical attention.
They also helped victims of the 8.7 magnitude earthquake that struck Nias Island off the coast of Sumatra on March 28. They were part of a 10-member IRT medical team aboard the USNS Mercy; seven team members live in San Diego County. The USNS Mercy is a floating hospital that helps with humanitarian relief when not providing support for Army and Air Force units deployed overseas.
The USNS Mercy initially deployed Jan. 5, 2005, to Banda Aceh, Sumatra, Indonesia to deliver aid and medical supplies. Team members helped the people most devastated by the tsunami that struck the region on Dec. 26, 2004. In cooperation with Project Hope, the ship performed more than 19,512 medical procedures from Feb. 6, 2005 to March 16, 2005 before moving on to help other parts of the tsunami-ravaged region, according to the USNS Mercy field guide.
The USNS Mercy returned in March 2005 to help with the relief efforts, assisting those at Nias Island affected by the earthquake.
“Once a disaster hits, you have a full-scale world effort “¦ people from all over the world come to help and the region is overwhelmed with helpers,” Rudy said.
Rudy’s expertise lies in the field of advanced cardiac life support. She has been all over the world volunteering with IRT for the past 10 years and also helped on one of the earlier relief efforts at Nias.
During her assignment, Rudy and the team of nurses, doctors and surveyors journeyed to the most devastated parts of Nias to administer medical aid and to document the extent of the damage caused by the March earthquake so future relief teams can bring the necessary supplies.
“It’s a natural human instinct to want to help,” Rudy said.
Medical assistance is a godsend for a nation like Indonesia, whose government doesn’t have the means to help the poor, according to Rudy. The local clinics, called puskesmas, don’t have all the necessary medical equipment to treat the more serious injuries. Sometimes residents can go weeks or months without seeing a physician, if at all, Rudy said.
When the relief teams arrive at the puskesmas, the residents literally begin to swarm because they know help is coming.
Rudy recalled one little girl who suffered from a hand infection. Hand infections are considered serious injuries because if untreated, the patient could lose their hand. Once the team recognized the seriousness of the injury, the little girl was immediately flown to the USNS Mercy, where she received the appropriate medical attention.
Only the most serious cases are flown directly back to the USNS Mercy. The ship has 1,000 hospital beds and up to 10 fully staffed operating rooms.
Snyder, who worked as an operating room nurse on the USNS Mercy, has been with IRT since 1996. She is a former operating room nurse who has never stopped volunteering since retiring in 2002. She travels the world whenever her volunteering commitments allow for it. In addition to IRT, Snyder also volunteers for Project Hope and San Diego Eye Bank, where she sits on the nurse advisory board.
While on the USNS Mercy, Snyder worked 10- to 12-hour days. During one week in Nias Island, the USNS Mercy admitted 6,000 patients and saw 22,000 patients, Snyder said.
“We could have done more cases every day if we had enough anesthesiologists,” she said.
Snyder has helped save many lives while at sea with the USNS Mercy. One young woman had been bleeding for three years because of myomas, or small tumors, in her uterus. The 26-year-old woman was prepared to die, Snyder said. However, because of the quick efforts of the volunteer medical teams, they were able to help save the woman, Snyder said.
There are already plans in motion for Snyder to return to the USNS Mercy on another humanitarian relief effort, and Rudy said she is ready to go back when the call to help goes out.
For more information on IRT, visit www.irteams.org.