JAN 20: "I AM IN GOD'S HANDS"

Marie Doval had her right leg amputated last Sunday, after being injured in the earthquake. Gangrene can set in within 24 hours of an injury. Photo by Chris Harris / The Times

Manuel Rene had his right arm amputated. The hospital cannot save everyone. Once infection takes hold no amount of antibiotics or surgery can help. Photo by Chris Harris / The Times

The Times, London, JAN 20 edition
Haiti: as gangrene sets in, the amputations begin

Excerpt below:
“I am in God’s hands,” said Michaela Pierre-Louis, 9. She was waiting for her left arm and chest to be X-rayed before taking her place in the queue for surgery yesterday. “I am glad my mother brought me.”

Outside the hospital under an awning set up next to two extra mobile operating theatres, patients were given numbers to keep their place in the queue. Marie-Marlene Sidone was No 14. “They say my leg is not broken, only the veins,” she said. “Until yesterday we did not think it was too bad. Then I couldn’t feel my toes any more.”

She will almost certainly lose her leg, and thereby live. This brutal calculus is saving hundreds of people who in most cases arrive with no idea how dangerous their infections have become, or what lies in store for them.