Tennessee amputee group to provide assistance to amputees in Haiti

From the Knoxville News-Sentinel:

When Patricia Isenberg first saw coverage of the earthquake in Haiti, her immediate thoughts went to limb loss.

"The one thing I know from our work with the military is that crush injuries are so devastating," said Isenberg, chief operating officer for the Knoxville-based Amputee Coalition of America. "I especially thought about the children."

And her fears weren't unfounded. As the rubble settled, in poured horror stories. Children losing multiple limbs. Haitians doing emergency amputations on-site with kitchen knives or hacksaws to reduce the chances of sepsis, to save lives.

Tens of thousands of new amputees, with little medical care or knowledge, and virtually no prostheses.

So when the National Centers for Disease Control and Prevention called, Isenberg was ready with materials on wound care, infection prevention and becoming an amputee. The CDC is now translating them into Kreyol, which about 80 percent of Haitians speak. Like Louisiana's Creole, Kreyol is derived from French, but it includes African language.

The printed materials are the first step in helping new amputees in a country where the orthotic and prosthetic clinics set up by Helping Hands for Haiti were destroyed by the earthquake, and amputations are being done in tent hospitals by volunteer surgeons working around the clock.

The next step is getting prosthetic limbs - along with wheelchairs, walkers, crutches, wraps, Ace bandages and "socks" that are worn over limb stumps - into the country. For that, ACA is pairing with the Florida-based nonprofit Barr Foundation, which already had a presence in Haiti with Helping Hands.

The Barr Foundation collects and warehouses donated prostheses, sending them all over the world to amputees who have no other means of getting a new limb. The foundation will also pay for fitting if necessary.

Some prostheses are new - and all major manufacturers are sending equipment, money and volunteers to Haiti, Isenberg said - but good used prostheses are also needed. If an amputee gains or loses weight or undergoes other body changes, for example, a prosthesis may stop fitting correctly before it's worn out. Children, in particular, grow so quickly that they usually require several prostheses before reaching adulthood. A new prosthetic leg - just a basic model - costs $20,000 new, she said.

Locally, Hangar Orthopedics is "participating in a nationwide prosthetic-limb drive to benefit amputees in Haiti, in conjunction with nonprofit Physicians for Peace and activist charity campaigner Heather Mills," said clinician Richard Mason. "Anyone can bring their old or used prosthetic limbs to any of our Hanger patient care centers nationwide. We will ship them to Physicians for Peace where they will be refurbished and then shipped down to aid the amputee rehabilitation efforts in Haiti."

Isenberg is getting a lot of calls from amputees who want to go to Haiti to provide "peer support."

"It's been so heartwarming to know that people who have lost their limbs want to reach out, to go help other people recover," she said.