A Child's Story - Stanley of Haiti
POSTED ON Feb 05, 2010 / UPDATED ON Jan 27, 2011
The earth was shaking. Eight-year-old Stanley could feel it in his feet and legs—his whole body was moving. The house was making noises around him.
The day had started off somewhat normal for the outgoing boy who loves to laugh and joke around. He had said goodbye to his mom and gone off to school in their area of town called Delmas 32. He knew she would be working all day, selling goods to people walking by on the street. On his way home from school that afternoon, he ran into two of his friends. They were going to play at a house nearby and he couldn’t help but join them. His homework could wait for a little bit, he thought. The boys were playing when the earth began to shake.
Stanley made it out of the house, but not before part of a wall landed on his hand and fingers, crushing them both. Another cement block fell on his leg. Stanley and one of the boys got as far as they could from the house and collapsed to the ground, which had finally stopped shaking under them.
All of a sudden, Stanley felt himself being scooped up. He opened his eyes and realized he was being carried through the sea of people, down the street. He looked to see a family friend was holding him. “Where are we going?” he asked. She told him she was taking him to his mom—and he remembered his mom didn’t know where he was. He saw her from a distance—a look of fear and panic on her face. There was relief there when she saw him and then more tears came from them both, happy to see one another alive. “I was so worried about him and thank God I found him—with the leg fractured and the hand,” Stanley’s mother said, remembering that day.
His mother lifted him as best she could and they began the journey—along with so many other people—to the nearest hospital. They reached the building, but people were overflowing out onto the street. When she was finally able to reach someone to ask for help, they said they were out of stitches. She was told to go to Jimani for medical care.
Stanley and his mother finally made it to Good Samaritan Hospital in Jimani, where Stanley got his leg put into a full cast and his hand, wrist, and fingers bandaged as best as they could be. He was happy that his older brother and sister were not injured. They were back in Haiti staying with friends.
Stanley and his mother joined ten other children and families on a helicopter that brought them to Children of the Nations' (COTN) clinic in Barahona. Stanley was timid at first around the COTN medical team and staff, but it didn’t take long for his playful personality to show—wheeling himself around the clinic in a wheelchair, making funny faces into people’s cameras, laughing out loud. When asked what he wants to be when he grows up, Stanley answered, “I want to be a doctor to take care of other people.”
After receiving needed treatment in the clinic for more than week, doctors deemed Stanley well enough to be considered an outpatient—able to come in with his mom every day for wound checks and continued physical therapy. COTN has provided him and his mother with a rehabilitation place to stay, along with a few of the other children and families who are in the same situation. Once he is well again—and without a cast—his mother would like to return to her home. “I really want to go back to Haiti, but Haiti has been completely destroyed,” she said. With her son in rehabilitation, they look forward to rebuilding their lives together.
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