Just like everyone else, I woke to images of frightened Nepali men, women and children screaming and fleeing from devastating rubble and tragedy. The depth of the tragedy was still too fresh to appreciate but it was clear... this was an immense national disaster that would need solid international support to recover from. The people of Nepal, that I cared so deeply for, needed help.
For the next week I tapped into every resource in my Rolodex trying to find a medical team that had a mission that matched my desired intentions... to serve the countryside of Nepal. It was clear that plenty of assistance was flooding into KTM and the Khumbu Valley. I was more concerned with the rural areas that weren't on the major trekking routes. The village clusters that have to walk miles for even the most basic medical attention. Those same villages build their homes by simply stacking rocks and mud with the occasional bag of mortar mixed in. These are the homes that crumble with major seismographic events. This is where medical assistance was needed and this is where I wanted to go.
MB says I paced around like a caged lion that week, waiting to connect with the right team that had an open slot.
As good networks do, mine provided me my wish. I was ultimately connected to a non profit called @nycmedics. Our light and fast team of docs, PAs, RNs and medics identified the most remote, most effected regions we could and we flew in.
In the month on the ground we treated close to 800 patients as tremor after tremor shook us.
A year later I'm back in Nepal working search and rescue in the trekker/climber saturated Khumbu Valley. But my thoughts are with the beautiful villagers of Langerchet and Towal. I wonder how they are a year later. I hope they are happy and healthy. And I hope the ground is stable underneath them.
#nepalearthquake #nepalnow #beofservice
