LDS relief: Team to reach Haiti via Dominican Republic

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic — Today at the crack of dawn.

That's the anticipated time that the LDS Church's team of volunteer doctors and nurses are expected to finally reach Haiti, and hopefully by late morning reach chapels that will become makeshift clinics and provide critical medical help for those hurting in the wake of last week's devastating earthquake.

It has been nearly two full days of on-again-off-again travel for the 18-member team sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that includes 14 volunteer doctors, nurses and two emotional-health specialists, all members of the Mormon faith.

The medical team departed Salt Lake City on Sunday afternoon for a midnight arrival in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., expecting to be shuttled by bus for a 4 a.m. charter flight directly to the Haiti capital of Port-au-Prince.

But Monday's early-morning flight initially was pushed back to a Monday evening departure before being scratched altogether for a couple of reasons, said Lynn A. Samsel, the LDS Church's director of humanitarian emergency response and community services.

First, the chartered aircraft scheduled to fly the team to Haiti broke down and was forced to make an emergency landing elsewhere, and the Port-au-Prince airport was open Monday for only military and government arrivals.

"This is so fluid," Samsel told medical team members. "Things are changing every day, minute by minute."

Using church travel services in Salt Lake City, leaders arranged for the medical team and its 50-plus large duffel bags of belongings, supplies and pharmaceuticals to fly out of Miami Monday evening to Santo Domingo, the Dominican Republic capital some 200 miles east of Port-au-Prince on the same island as Haiti.

The team arrived in Santo Domingo late Monday, then boarded buses to travel toward Haiti. However, the border was closed until dawn, which will be the earliest the team can cross into Haiti and move on to Port-au-Prince.

Samsel said he anticipated the logistics of traveling across the border and over barely passable Haitian roads to take six to eight hours Tuesday.

Marc-Aurel Martial, a Haiti native who lives in Orem and works as a critical-care nurse in Murray, was anxious to get his medical team peers to his home country.

He has returned to Haiti each of the past five years for medical and humanitarian purposes, but he understands the severity of circumstances surrounding this trip.