To Contact Us
Write:
PO Box 1603
Lafayette, IN 47902
Phone:
(765) 742-2050
Fax:
(765) 742-7513
E-mail
our office
Buy, Sell, Trade or Rent with Classified Advertising
Happening ... in the Local Church
 Sue
Alexander |
Volunteer arrived in Haiti two hours before quake.
By Kevin Cullen
The
Catholic Moment
WEST LAFAYETTE — Red Cross volunteer nurse Sue Alexander is back home now … but her heart remains amid the rubble and death in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
She nearly died in the Jan. 12 earthquake. She remembers the agony of a pregnant woman with broken arms and legs, and a man whose face was crushed. She thinks about the devastation, the dead, the prayers, and the helplessness she felt when she had no more pain killers to give.
“My biggest regret is that I didn’t have more supplies,” said Alexander, a retired registered nurse and member of St. Thomas Aquinas Church in West Lafayette. “I worked in the neighborhood, house to house. I had antibiotics and some potent pain medicine, so I was able to minister to people until it was all gone.
“A young girl, about 10 years old, died in my arms,” she said in a Jan. 18 interview. “At first, I wasn’t sure if she was dead or alive, (then) she gasped. I didn’t see external injuries, so she must have been crushed. I checked her pulse with my hand, and it was probably 250. I looked up at her father and said, ‘She is dying.’
“The father was frantic. He was running with her, but there was no place for him to go.”
Alexander, a resident of Romney in Tippecanoe County, has served Haitians since 1994, and once lived on the Caribbean island for nearly two years. She still makes two 10-day trips to Haiti every year.
She arrived in Port-au-Prince on Jan. 12, planning to spend the next 10 days working as a volunteer Red Cross nurse. Two hours later, the quake hit. She returned to the United States on a military plane on Jan. 16. Now she’s raising money to build a new home for Martin Glesil, the translator who lost almost everything … and saved her life.
“I promised him we would get the money. I don’t know how I will do it, but I promised,” she said less than a day after her return home. She was staying in Glesil’s house when the magnitude 7.0 temblor struck .
Alexander is starting to raise funds to assist Glesil. She urged anyone interested in helping the family to contact her at sualexander34@gmail.com.
Checks can be sent to St. Thomas Aquinas Church, 535 W. State St., West Lafayette, IN 47906. “Martin’s house” should be written on the memo line.
“I’m doing this on my own. Not a dime will be lost,” she said.
Glesil has assisted local missionaries for years. He lived in the Christ Roi section of Port-au-Prince with his daughter, mother, sister and two nieces. His house was across the street from the Hospice St. Joseph clinic, which also was destroyed.
“I was just talking to some of the little girls when I felt this horrible, horrible rumbling. It was a freight train sound,” Alexander said. “I knew what it was. I couldn’t stand up. I don’t know if I was thrown to the floor or not, but I was saying my prayers, wondering what it was going to be like to die.”
She saw a large chunk of concrete tumbling directly toward her. Just then, Glesil called to her. By grabbing his hand, she escaped near-certain death. The floors were shaking and it was difficult to walk. Somehow, they got out of the house and into the street, where they stayed. Glesil’s family survived, too.
“I felt he saved my life,” Alexander said. “All this debris was coming down, but I managed to dodge it.”
Finally, the ground stopped trembling. Everything had changed. Everything was still. The house was in ruins, as was Hospice St. Joseph. Survivors emerged from the rubble, in shock, terrified, unable to comprehend. Nobody knew what had happened. No one had any information.
Five people were killed close to Glesil’s house, including four in one family.
“There was one young man whose face was probably hit by a concrete block,” Alexander said. “Half his face was torn … his eye … I had ointment and dressing. There were a lot of fractures.”
The entire Christ Roi neighborhood sustained massive damage. Most buildings collapsed.
Much of the concrete used in Haiti is weak, and “they don’t use any kind of reinforcing steel, so they (concrete buildings) just turn to powder and dust,” Alexander said.
No one was allowed to go back into their houses, so Alexander and other survivors slept on sheets of cardboard in the street. It was the only safe place they could find. She and Glesil’s family rationed their rice and pasta, eating only one bowlful each day. They shared power bars, crackers, cheese and water.
“The Haitians were wonderful. They prayed and sang and shared with each other,” she said. “There were five women in that neighborhood, and one would cook each day. There was limited charcoal, so they cooked once each day.”
She said she saw no looting or violence, only “people with great respect for each other.”
The first night after the quake was especially memorable. The Haitians, happy simply to be alive, sang, “Jezi (Jesus), Jezi, Jezi, alleluia …”
“They have nothing, but they remain a joyful people and praise God,” Alexander said. “My American mind was saying, ‘We need our sleep. We can pray later,’ I had to click a switch in my mind and see how beautiful that was. For me, there was beauty lying on the street and looking up into the star-filled sky. The contrast between heaven and earth was certainly something, and it gave me hope.
“I didn’t know if I would get home again, but I was glad to be alive.”
Friends and family were concerned about her safety, but Alexander had no way to contact them. Eventually she met a Texas woman who contacted them after she returned to the States.
After distributing all her medicine, Alexander said she felt that she was “eating food and drinking water that the Haitians needed.” She managed to get aboard a military plane and flew back to Florida.
“I thought I could do more good (at home) than I was doing there,” Alexander said.
“I gave what I had until it ran out. Now I want to raise money to help one family. Martin saved my life. He represents Haiti to me — a young man trying to support his mother, sister, daughter and nieces.”