While all the of United States of America and much of the world
looked back on today and remembered the awful events that happened at the sight
of those world trade centres that 9/11, the people of the town of Fond Parisien
and the surrounding mountain areas will look back at 9/11 2012 as a day to never
forget as well.
We had just settled to spend a relaxing evening and Michelle had just
voiced that it seems that 'something was supposed to happen tonight'. [ you know
when you have that feeling that you missed something you were supposed to be
doing something?] It was around 8:00 pm when one of our friends came flying in
on the 4- wheeler hollering, ' where is the ambulance? There's been a terrible
accident at Carrefour Tchut!" This is where the main mountain road comes down to
meet the main drag through our town.Tiboutson scrambled for his ambulance keys and
flipped on sirens and lights and went howling out the lane. The rest of us
looked at each other and wondered if we should go too. Only moments later
Michelle's phone rang, we didn't have to hear much and we all flew to action. We
jumped in the back of the F-150 and raced off. Someone else called Aaron to come
with the F-450 as well so we had available space for hauling the injured. As we
raced down the road, the sea of people that were running to the scene of the
accident was unreal. You see many , many people travel up and down this road
everyday and many people were waiting on family members to come home that night.
Of course everyone went to see if they could identify someone,
anyone!
When we got to the scene it was like a nightmare unfolding before our
eyes. What appears to have happened - a big, fully loaded mountain truck was
travelling down the mountain road. [When I say a fully- loaded truck, I mean a
big open box truck packed full, as this one was , of big sacks of carrots, along
with a few potatoes, grapefruits and charcoal. When the truck is loaded nearly
heaping full and you are sure nothing could fit in then the people climb on top
of these bags of produce for the ride down. Hence the term, fully- loaded really
is over-loaded and this load sways to and fro as you roll around those curves
and down into town. ]It appears the truck lost it's brakes and had no way of
coming to stop. As it rolled into town it hit a smaller white box truck who
seems to have been parked along the road and somewhere the big truck lost
balance and rolled over on its side. What it left was a horrible tangled mass of
scattered carrots and human bodies.
We jumped out of the truck and tried to elbow our way through the noisy,
milling crowds. There were so many people you could hardly move. We wiggled our
way through, tripping over bags of carrots and trying to not slip on pools of blood
as we searched for survivors. I'll not be too graphic, but those sights of
twisted, grotesque bodies are not ones that you forget easily.There was 8 or 9
people who were obviously dead at the scene, all in a crumpled mass.We figured
out that all the living had been removed and rushed to the local hospital.
Shortly Tiboutson called for us to come to the hospital to help transport
people into Port. We found one man who was hit in the head and took him with us
to the Thoman hospital. There another scene of chaos was unfolding, but at least
time it was organized chaos. Thank the Lord there was a team of white doctors
there and they had promptly put an IV in each of the victims and were doing some
sort of triage to figure out who were the worst cases. We loaded up the 4 worst
ones and Tiboutson raced off to Port-au Prince to 'Sans Frontier' hospital. In
the meantime 3 of the victims that were brought to Thoman died. Next we loaded
up the F-450 with 5 patients and tried to find a family member to go with each
of them. This was a challenge as many of these people came from up the mountain
and their families had no idea at this point. It was hard to know how many
people you could fit into the bed of the truck as most of them we feared for
neck and back injuries so we had to keep them as flat as possible.This was
caused most likely by the way they were thrown from the truck and the big bags
of carrots that came falling out after everybody. Ezekiel left with the 450 and
Michelle and Hannah went along to help keep everyone OK.
We loaded only 2 people on the back of the F-150 as the rest seemed to
be in stable condition there at Thoman. Austin and Jimmy wired up the truck horn
so it would sound non-stop and we were off! Sheila and I sat in the back with
our 2 victims praying our hearts out to God who knows and sees everything , even
this. We kept them conscious and sang with them as we watched their IVs and
gasped as we raced over the bumps. I finally was able to contact the one victims
family and tell them to meet us at the hospital. The other lady didn't know any
phone numbers of people to contact and we felt so sorry for her . She kept
wondering where her daughter is -she was with her and we are sure she died. We
all pulled in to Medicine Sans Frontier in rapid succession. Praise the Lord
this is a good emergency hospital and it was pretty well empty when we arrived
so they could take our people quickly! They kept most of the patients there but
did transfer a few to a partnering hospital.
We got back to Fond Parisien around midnight. The scene of the accident
spoke horror as the bodies lay there and some people still were around. By this
time the police were on the scene so I hope they took care of the rest. The
last I heard the death number was 14 people - 9 at the scene, 3 at Thoman
hospital and someone said 2 died after they arrived at Sans Frontier. We headed
back to Thoman to chat with the nurses and see the 3 victims that were there
with minor injuries. We counted up about 17 survivors with various degrees of
injuries. As we spoke to the 3 victims we all reminded each other that it is
truly only by the Grace of God that we are alive.
We crawled into our beds at 1:30 am after washing out the backs of the
trucks with strong bleach and soap. We counted our blessings and we breathed a
prayer for the grieving families. Would you join us in prayer as these dear
people try to pick up the pieces and go on with their lives.
Because of Jesus,
Love, Julia 
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