A Child's Story - Antoine of Haiti
POSTED ON Feb 04, 2010 / UPDATED ON Jan 27, 2011
Antoine smiles joyfully while recuperating at COTN's clinic in Barahona
Antoine, suffering from a crushed pelvis, in her bright red cast, her favorite color!
Antoine, one of the Haiti earthquake victims currently being treated at COTN's clinic in Barahona
Antoine perched in front of her family’s television. She couldn’t believe that she got to watch it all by herself! Her three older siblings were playing at a friend’s house, her mom was out selling goods, and her father was in the other room with neighbors, who were visiting.
The rambunctious 6-year-old had just gotten home from school. She snuggled up to watch a show just as the ground beneath her began to shake. She looked around, not understanding what was going on as cracks started forming in the walls and ceiling around her. Antoine yelled to her father in the next room. What was happening? She could hear her father yelling that he was coming to get her, but she couldn’t see him. The walls of her house began to cascade down from the shaking ground and Antoine soon found herself under the cement blocks, her legs crushed.
She heard her father Bolivar calling to her and giving her words of comfort. He quickly lifted the pieces of wall off of his little girl. Antoine couldn't move her legs—her father lifted her and carried her outside. There, Antoine saw her mom come running down the street of rubble, and all of her siblings, too—a few had minor injuries, but nothing more.
“The next day, an American found us,” Bolivar recalls, “and brought us to Jimani in the Dominican Republic.” Leaving her mother and her three siblings in their section of town called Delmas 30, Antoine and her father showed up at Good Samaritan Hospital in Jimani in desperate need. Every time Antoine moved, she felt pain in her legs and hips. Examined by doctors at the hospital, they determined Antoine had a fractured pelvis; however, they had no X-ray machine* to be sure. They lined up her bones the best they could and put a cast on her hips and legs—she and Bolivar remained, under the care of the nurses and doctors who came by to check on her every few hours.
After more than ten days, Bolivar was unsure if his daughter was getting any better. There were so many people who needed care; and it was difficult to get attention. Children of the Nations (COTN) medical team leader Dr. Vicki Sakata determined that Antoine was in need of more focused and critical care, so she asked Bolivar if they would come to COTN’s clinic in Barahona where she could be cared for in a more sterile, clean environment. He agreed, and the two traveled to Barahona.
Once at COTN’s clinica, the surgeons who were part of COTN’s medical team immediately took off her old pelvic cast and replaced it with a new one. She looked over at her father, sitting next to her. He looked tired, but some of the worry was gone from his eyes. That made her happy. Her pain wasn’t as bad as it had been a few days ago. Maybe being here in this new place was good, Antoine thought. “Antoine is doing okay now. She was suffering, but now she is okay,” Bolivar said through an interpreter. “I am really happy with the care that you are giving her.”
As Antoine begins to sit up in a chair, filling up a coloring book with vibrant pictures and laughing out loud—showing her huge, joyful smile. Bolivar is grateful and more relaxed, and think ahead to reuniting with his family in Haiti.
* Read an inspiring X-ray story here.
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