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The trip out of Florida was peaceful, quiet. Like any other routine flight.
But then the plane carrying Heather Hill and her daughter Darcy crossed over the mountains of Haiti and started its descent into Port-au-Prince. The sea near the Haitian capital was filled with military and medical ships there to help in the aftermath of the Jan. 12 earthquake that devastated the already poverty-stricken nation.
"That's when reality started setting in," said Hill, a Benton-Franklin Health District nurse who spent a week in Haiti treating the sick and injured.
She and Darcy, a nursing student, were two of a handful of Tri-Citians with ties to a Port-au-Prince orphanage who recently returned from stints helping in the relief effort.
Several of them said their time in Haiti has given them a new perspective on life.
The orphanage where the Tri-Citians worked is called New Life Children's Center and is run by Florida-based World Harvest Missions. The orphanage's name is similar to that of an Idaho charity that made headlines recently after some volunteers were arrested trying to take Haitian children into the Dominican Republic, but the groups aren't connected.
Hill and her daughter used the New Life compound as a base and spent most of their days traveling with a small medical team throughout the city, providing whatever treatment they could.
They saw everything from deep lacerations to broken and crushed bones. One patient was a 96-year-old woman with a fractured femur. They also treated babies who weren't hurt in the quake but who were becoming seriously ill because there wasn't enough food and water to go around.
At night, they cared for people in the "infirmary" set up in the church at the New Life compound, Hill said.
"In some cases, "we'd have to treat people without decent pain control. As a nurse, I knew it hurt," she said.
But the people treated didn't complain and instead got through their pain by chanting or singing, she said.
Heather and Darcy's connection to New Life was through family friend Patty Thomas of Kennewick, who works at the orphanage several months each year. Thomas wasn't hurt in the quake and plans to stay at New Life into the spring.
Her sons, John and Todd Thomas of Richland, started raising money and working on travel plans after the quake and were able to deliver several large containers of supplies. They recently returned from a 11/2-week trip to Haiti.
The brothers helped clean up rubble left when part of the security wall surrounding the compound crumbled. They also brought patients to the church infirmary, provided some basic medical care like dressing wounds and transported patients back and forth to the hospital set up at the Port-au-Prince airport.
Like other Tri-City volunteers, they were touched by the resiliency they saw in the Haitian people, most of whom were struggling before the quake, Todd said.
"They are the most gentle and the kindest people I've ever run into. Even in all that chaos, they're still nice. They still put a smile on their face," he said.
He and other volunteers saw people at the airport hospital waiting to have surgery, to have their crushed limbs amputated.
"You'd ask how they're doing. They'd smile and say, 'Bien,' good," he said.
Todd said he and his brother felt good that they were able to help, even in a small way. But they left wishing they could have done more.
The experience has made them both want to become emergency medical technicians, Todd said.
The brothers were joined at New Life by a four-man team from Kennewick led by longtime World Harvest volunteer Randy Blumer.
The team -- which also included Brandon Gregory, Rick Feather and Jeff Marlatt -- worked on the security wall and went out into the city, transporting people and supplies.
The devastation they saw was significant -- from unnavigable roads to leveled buildings. They saw people building fires on top of destroyed buildings to mask the smell of human remains still trapped underneath.
"What we discover (through experiences like being in Haiti) is that it doesn't matter where you come from, we're all God's children," Blumer said. "The buildings there, those aren't bodies (buried underneath). Those are moms, dads, uncles, aunts, brothers, sisters."
Blumer said one of the most poignant moments of the trip for him was when he and Feather spent time praying for individual children at the orphanage.
Gregory and Marlatt loved the moments they had playing soccer and having fun with the kids, who were able to smile despite all they'd been through.
The team learned that "even in the middle of disaster, there's always hope," Gregory said. "The people there, they're not (destroyed) like the buildings."
They'll recover, but not without a lot more help, the Tri-City volunteers said.
"My message would be don't forget about Haiti" even as stories about the disaster fade from the news, Hill said. "They're going to need help for the long run."
To learn more about World Harvest Missions or make a donation, go to www.whmnew life.org.
