One of the girls aboard a helicopter with TVF&R firefighter volunteers as she is evacuated to the United States.
Two critically injured ten year old girls from Haiti are awaiting surgery at a hospital in San Antonio, Texas thanks, in part, to the volunteer work performed by two Tualatin Valley Fire and Rescue paramedics. Dan Livengood and Chad Ledson both work full time as firefighter/paramedics for TVF&R. They also volunteer their free time for Tigard-based Medical Teams International.
Livengood and Ledson traveled to Haiti in early March to volunteer with a Medical Teams International (MTI) mission at the Lumiere Hospital wound care unit near Les Cayes, Haiti. During their time at the hospital, they met the two girls. One of the girls was pulled from the rubble of her school where 12 of her 21 classmates died in Port au Prince. The other was injured when she was trapped under cinder blocks at her home and her right leg sustained traumatic injuries. According to Medical Teams International, it soon became apparent the girls could lose their legs if they did not get more help in the U.S.
Livengood and Ledson, who are both parents of young children, volunteered to fly with the girls to the US aboard a United Nations helicopter. Host families have agreed to temporarily adopt the two young girls and provide extensive care for them over the next six months while they are at the University of Texas Medical Center in San Antonio.
Ledson and Livengood prepare the two girls to be evacuated by helicopter.
More than a dozen TVF&R firefighters have been volunteering their free time with Medical Teams International for several years. They have traveled recently to Asia and Africa. Firefighters work with the Medical Teams International to pay for the cost of the trips. Some TVF&R firefighters who aren’t able to make such a commitment donate their vacation time to fellow firefighters so they can afford to volunteer.
Several more groups of TVF&R firefighters will be traveling to Haiti with MTI over the next five months.
