The team from Akron's Children's Hospital traveled to Haiti to save lives.
Yet in spite of their efforts and the work by others at the impoverished nation's only free children's hospital — death was still everywhere.
''Dr. [John] Pope, Dr. [Jeff] Kempf and myself wound up being pallbearers,'' said Akron Children's CEO Bill Considine on Thursday — one day after returning from the nation that has suffered calamities from floods to earthquakes.
Yet, Considine said, the work being done by doctors and nurses there is ''inspirational when you see it.''
Considine said the Haitians are resilient in the face of adversity.
''You see a kindness in the Haitian people . . . a reaching out to their brethren,'' even though most have little or nothing themselves.
The roads are still full of trash and rubble from the Jan. 12 earth
quake that pancaked buildings and killed about 250,000. Many of the survivors are now forced to live in tent cities.
The triple whammy of the earthquake, Hurricane Tomas earlier this month and now a cholera outbreak, Considine said, has not dampened the spirit of Haitians.
''They're making do with stuff we consider waste,'' he said.
Children's established an affiliation with St. Damien Hospital in Port-au-Prince this year.
''We're looking forward to building a closer working relationship with them,'' Considine said.
Emergency room doctor Kempf, who was named director of the newly formed Office of Pediatric Global Health, arrived Nov. 7 in Haiti after a hurricane delayed the group's original plans to leave Nov. 1.
Following Kempf's arrival, Considine, along with five more doctors and two nurses, arrived in the ensuing days to help at the hospital. The last of the team came home this week.
Kempf is working to make it possible for doctors in Akron to digitally read X-rays of more severe injuries, enabling doctors here to offer guidance to the Haitians in tricky diagnoses.
Considine said traveling to Haiti was important for him because he wanted ''to see it with [his] own eyes.
''I want to start to assess what would be meaningful, helpful'' to St. Damien.
While there, Considine met with U.S. Ambassador, former Hudson resident and Walsh Jesuit High School alumnus Kenneth Merten, and his wife, Susan.
''It was a wonderful trip,'' Kempf said Thursday. ''The surgical team . . . did an amazing job'' while in Haiti. He said the team performed about 50 surgeries and helped with the growing number of cholera patients.
''They did amazing work for Haiti. The work those guys did, and dedicated to the kids in Haiti, was really remarkable.'' There's only one pediatric surgeon in Haiti, Kempf said.
Akron residents Jim and Vanita Oelschlager donated the use of their airplane to ferry part of the group of volunteers, including Considine; Vanita Oelschlager; Jeff Kempf's wife, Dr. Ellen Kempf; and Pope.
They also took along some of the many items donated by Children's and others.
The Oelschlagers donated a ventilator, which Pope will teach the St. Damien staff to use, and gave Children's the seed money to establish the relationship with the Haitian hospital.
Some of the donations include 900 pounds of the hand sanitizer Purell from GOJO in Akron. Sanitation is especially difficult in Haiti since the earthquake, with little clean water available.
Little Tikes in Hudson donated large and small toys, being careful not to send toys that would need batteries or that had fabric to get dirty and hold germs.
About 250 pounds of toys, such as slides, wagons, scooters and rocking horses were delivered to the airplane hangar Oct. 29 by Laurie Frankino, assistant to the president of Little Tikes. Those toys were taken along on the group's trip.
Frankino said the company also sent a shipment twice that size. ''Children everywhere deserve to have toys.''
Wilson Sporting Goods donated boxes of soccer balls.
Ellen Kempf said the toys will be divided between the hospital and an orphanage.
Paris Healthcare Linen donated 600 pounds of bedsheets and about 200 pediatric gowns. The Ravenna company supplies linens to hospitals.
Children's Hospital, too, donated some small equipment and medications.
The group also brought nearly 600 bone marrow needles, needed to treat severely dehydrated cholera victims, and other items, Ellen Kempf said.
Vanita Oelschlager, an award-winning children's author, said she was going along to find another children's story.
''It was such an unbelievable trip,'' Oelschlager said. She said she found many stories to write, but the first will probably be the story of a 6-year-old named Moses.
When he was just a baby, the child's grandmother put him into a basket during a flood that destroyed his family. Rescuers found him, still in the basket, named him and took Moses to an orphanage.
Oelschlager said that, when asked where he's from, he answers, ''I came from the water.''
All of the proceeds from her series of books are donated to charity. When she writes her Haitian story, all money will be donated there.
''To see these people, they still have hope.'' she said.
Jim Oelschlager is the founding director of Oak Associates, an Akron investment firm. He shrugs at the notion of being generous.
''The need is obvious,'' he said. ''If somebody has the ability to help, and they don't, they're a real schmuck.''
Considine said Children's hopes to grow the relationship between the two hospitals.
''I know they [St. Damien staff] have dreams. I want to help achieve those dreams. It's a mission.''
To read more about the trip to Haiti, go to the "Helping Hands" blog on Ohio.com.
Linda Golz can be reached at 330-996-3640 or lgolz@thebeaconjournal.com.
