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IsraAID Emergency Rescuer Relays Haiti Experience

(Jerusalem Post) Maayan Keinan - Alan Schneider, a member of the IsraAID emergency response team in devastated Haiti and the director of the Bnai Brith World Center in Jerusalem, said the first IsraAid response team left for Haiti just two days after the earthquake. The U.S. government refused to allow the team to board planes to Haiti, so the team chartered a plane to the neighboring Dominican Republic. According to Schneider, the IsraAid team, lead by Dr. David Dorge, was the first response team to leave the airport and help victims out in the field. The medical team treated over 70 victims at the Port-au-Prince general hospital, which itself was deserted and in danger of collapse, with hundreds of wounded people in the garden. The IsraAID team was the first one to arrive at the football stadium, and was greeted by "about 12,000 injured." Schneider expressed dissatisfaction with the U.S. agents sent to the stadium to assess the situation there. "They arrived as if to a war zone; with machine-guns, sunglasses and an attitude. In the days it took them to assess the situation, we had been treating hundreds of people." Schneider spoke highly of his team, which included 67-year-old Sheva Cohen; suicide-bombing survivor Assaf Perlman; Khaled Massala, a Bedouin from Dabburiya; Dr. Eitan Heller and others.
2010-02-05 08:44:57
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