13845: PLEASE POST ANONYMOUSLY-Doctor recovers in U.S. after shooting in Haiti- (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

PLEASE POST ANONYMOUSLY. THANKS!


Doctor recovers in U.S. after shooting in Haiti

By Kellie Patrick
Staff writer
Posted November 28 2002
Sun-Sentinel

The Haitian missionary doctor watched as hospital
workers wheeled his severely injured wife to a new
room at St. Mary's Medical Center -- a short trip that
meant she was healing from the five bullets shot into
her neck, shoulder, arm and chest.

Eight days earlier, she had completed a much longer,
tense journey that began in a pool of her own blood in
Pétionville, Haiti.

Surgeon Guy D. Théodore tended to his wife, an
obstetrician-gynecologist, on a four-hour flight from
Port-Au-Prince to West Palm Beach. He carefully
monitored her breathing and blood pressure until the
plane landed and an ambulance whisked her to surgery.

Théodore founded a charity hospital where he and
Darline Carre-Théodore, work. While he does not
believe the attack was politically motivated, Théodore
said the chaos in his country contributed to it.

"I would say it was related to the instability in
Haiti, and it's the political situation that has
caused that instability," he said, taking a break from
his hospital vigil only after studying the monitors
above his sleeping wife's head.

Protests rocked Haiti last week. Students and others
called for the resignation of President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide in response to economic crisis and a
governmental attempt to take over the university
system. Friday, Aristide supporters took to the
streets, shutting down the capital with gunshots and
fires that reached into Pétionville, a wealthier area,
and the place where Carre-Théodore was shot.



The house was quiet when just before 2 a.m.,
Carre-Théodore's 15-year-old daughter heard shots.

"Because they are shooting all the time in the streets
in Haiti, because there is so much insecurity that
hearing shots is common, she thought it was outside,"
Théodore said.

The house became quiet again. Then, the girl heard her
mother crying. She ran to Carre-Théodore's room and
found her lying in blood.

The injured woman's brother called Théodore, who had
returned to Haiti that night and was at a home about
25 minutes away. Her family drove her to the local
hospital where Théodore met them and joined the team
of doctors who worked to stabilize her. The community
hospital lacked the diagnostic equipment necessary to
determine the extent of her injuries, something that
should be done before surgery.

Théodore decided his wife, a U.S. citizen, should come
to Florida for treatment. Knowing an air ambulance
flight would take precious time to arrange, Théodore
called a West Palm Beach charity that had for years
brought short-term missionaries, medicine and supplies
for his hospital.

Missionary Flights International travels to Haiti
nearly every Tuesday. Flight plans were altered that
day, switching the destination from Cap-Haitien to
Port-Au-Prince. A gurney was added to the day's cargo.

This is the first time the organization's 60-year-old
DC3 served as an ambulance, said Missionary Flights
President Dick Snook.

Théodore kept in close contact with the pilot for the
course of the four-hour flight.

At 8,000 feet, the pressure that can cause a patient
with a chest wound to lose air is not as great.

But at 10,000 feet, the plane can fly faster, and
Carre-Theodore needed to get to West Palm Beach
quickly.

When his wife complained she couldn't get air or when
her blood pressure dropped, Théodore signaled the
pilot to fly lower until the woman who has been his
wife for 12 years breathed normally again.

"I played the game and we made it," Théodore said.

The Missionary Flights plane that served as her
ambulance landed at Palm Beach International at about
8:30 p.m. She had lost more than a third of her blood.
A bullet that entered on the left side of her throat
tore through her soft pallet and exited at the outside
corner of her right eye.

But she can see, something Théodore says is but one of
many miracles.

"That's the Lord's hands," said Théodore. "There's no
way somebody can get shot five times and not die."

He is not certain whether the person who shot his wife
stole anything from her father's home, but friends in
Haiti called to say the radio was reporting arrests
had been made.

Carre-Théodore was in fair condition Wednesday. Her
relatives from Miami, New York and Haiti planned to
visit in the evening.

She was hungry and thirsty.

"It's a good sign. It's a very encouraging sign,"
Théodore said.

Kellie Patrick can be reached at
kpatrick@sun-sentinel.com or 561-243-6629