UNC four return from the frontline

Surrounded by photographs of shattered homes and makeshift encampments - images that they say don't capture the reality of Hurricane Katrina's utter devastation A-- UNC Hospitals staff recounted their 10-day operation in Waveland, Miss., on Monday afternoon.

"The mission has a purpose," said Michele Rudisill, MidCarolina Trauma Regional Advisory Committee coordinator. "For the people of the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, we are saving their lives."

Hospital professionals joined Rudisill to acknowledge and applaud the collaborative efforts of North Carolina's medical units.

"We were deployed in the eye," said Chip Rich, chief of trauma and critical care at UNC Hospitals and one of four hospital officials who returned Saturday.

The group left Sept. 2 from Charlotte and stayed in Camp Shelby, Miss., before reaching Waveland on Sept. 4. By 8 a.m. the next day, the N.C. State Medical Assistance Team II Field Hospital was up and running in a Kmart parking lot with a six-bed treatment area. By midday, 15 beds were in place.

"A mini-city has evolved," Rudisill said. Complete with laundry services, wireless internet and police patrol, the strip mall - which the group found entirely blown out in the front, littered with cars and inhabited by an alligator - is known now as "Camp Katrina."

Helicopters were landing by Sept. 6, and the crew responded to at least one helicopter landing per day. Two to three landings each day was not uncommon.

"I thought I was in Vietnam or a war zone," said Rudisill, whose sleeping quarters were next to the landing pad. "It was very surreal."

The approximately 80 statewide staff members who accompanied the UNC troupe saw 1,000 patients, 90 percent of whom needed acute care. Pharmacists, respiratory specialists and emergency medical personnel were among the volunteers.

"I gave people Motrin, and they thought I saved their life," said Ed Wilson of the UNC Emergency Department.

The team dealt with lacerations, injuries from falls, crushed extremities, broken bones and a few car crashes due to faulty traffic lights at intersections, said Ben Zarzaur, a UNC critical care surgeon.

"Once you're there, you start to see the pattern of what's going on," he said.

Rudisill, who was staffed in the triage tent, recalled patients whose houses were knee-deep in mud and a man who severely injured his arms while grasping a tree for more than 12 hours during the hurricane.

The medical assistance team will be deployed for a minimum of 8 to 12 weeks, with shifts of Regional Advisory Committee volunteers leaving for a week every Thursday.

"If you go, you need to go with a group," Zarzaur said. "Otherwise, you're going to be part of the problem and not the solution."

 

Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.edu