A Doctor's Eyewitness Account From Haiti

Dr. Tom Hoggard, a Portland surgeon working in Haiti with Medical Teams International, has worked on 15 previous relief missions with the Oregon-based international relief agency.

That experience with refugee camps and rescue missions has included helping in Somalia in 1992 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005. But Hoggard said as horrific as the devastation he has witnessed before, this most recent catastrophe in Haiti is by far the worst.

"People are dying beneath the rubble," Hoggard said in a conference call today. "People and kids lost the rest of their family members. It's nonstop. For me, it's different than treating people in refugee camps that don't have such serious trauma."

When asked what we can do to help, Hoggard says two things.

"The one thing is pray. After that, the other thing you can do is send money," he said. "I hate to be so blunt, but we need resources. This is very serious, and it takes much more serious care to keep people alive."

See the docs at work here and learn how you can help the Haiti relief effort by visiting Medical Teams International.