By Scott Schermerhorn
Technician – Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department
Medical Specialist – Fairfax County International Urban Search and Rescue
Notification
Just before 17:30 hours on January 12, 2010, things got a little crazy. A text told me to turn on CNN. Another said “email your deployment availability.” Another related to “make sure your gear is packed.” And then the one we were all waiting for. “Activation. All off-duty VA-TF1 members report to the Fire Academy.” Of course, I was on-duty and my bags were at home.
I wanted to go. I wanted to help. This is what we train for. This is what we are. As a Medical Specialist with Fairfax County’s International Urban Search and Rescue Team, we train to respond to man-made and natural disasters across the globe. We spend countless hours in classrooms, in cold tents eating MRE’s during Field Exercises, and now it was time to put all of this preparation to work. The problem was...I was on a fire engine on-duty. I was jumpy. Glued to the TV and the internet trying to get all the information I could. Thirty minutes passed. Still hoping I would get to go. An hour. more.
And then the phone rang; a replacement was on the way and I was being deployed. I was to report to the Academy as soon as possible. It sank in, I was going to Haiti. And this emotional roller coaster would continue for the next eighteen days.
Going to work
Assigned to a Rescue Squad as the Medical Specialist I was ready to go to work when we arrived in Port-Au-Prince. The rescue squad’s “break rock” to physically make the rescues. And as the medic, I was responsible for not only assuring the health of my squad, but also ensuring that entrapped persons come out of the rubble alive. This often means crawling through holes no bigger than your body, over metal, concrete and glass, in the complete dark. Up until now it had been in training and on small-scale operations. But this time was different. This time, the rubble had bodies in it. Everywhere we worked were signs of death, and the holes were longer, darker, and it took longer to get to the victims, let alone get them out.
Search teams called out with more locations. More buildings to be searched. More victims to be rescued. The squads went from site to site. And then we would locate another victim and go to work. And work we did. Hour after hour. Day after day. One BIG roller coaster.
Lives
Although I’ve been a medic on busy units for more than a decade, the care that I provided within those eighteen days was much harder than any care before. Every victim encountered needed more. IVs. IOs. Intubation. Sutures. Amputations. Disarticulations. Medications. Starting IV’s upside down. Carefully maneuvering victims over hundreds of feet of rubble. Running out of IV fluids and oxygen in the back of a Humvee while looking for an open hospital...with a patient that your team just spent more than 30 hours extricating. These patients needed us, and we were there for them. One hundred and thirty six victims were rescued by the 40 different Urban Search and Rescue Teams that responded to the earthquake. Fairfax County’s team accounted for 16 of these.
Demobilization
As the days wore on and the rescues dwindled, plans to go home started filtering out. The roller coaster continued. Initially it was scheduled for this day. Then the next. Then a few days later. In the midst of all this, my squad took some basic relief supplies to groups that needed them including an orphanage. We drove for what seemed like hours. When we finally stopped, the kids were ushered inside. Dozens of them. While they did their schoolwork, we put up their “new homes.” And then when we were done, the kids came out and sang to us. M’esi. M’esi. M’esi. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And the roller coaster stopped.