Local nurse travels to Haiti
by Lindsay Hoeppner · February 10, 2010

West Liberty Elementary School students received a lesson in heroism Monday morning.

“A hero is someone who comes through for people when things are tough,” elementary principal Nancy Gardner said to the entire student body.

Gardner wasn’t merely lecturing the first-fifth-graders, though. Rather, she had a special presentation planned to coincide with the elementary’s 100th day of school celebration.

Gardner introduced University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics emergency room nurse Laurie Smith of West Liberty, whom she referred to as a “real-life hero.” Smith, the mother of fifth-grader Emma King, is also involved with World Wide Village, a St. Paul, MN-based nonprofit charitable organization. Its mission is to transform impoverished communities mainly by providing Christian education, healthcare, nutrition and micro enterprise opportunities to children and families across the world.

Following the catastrophic earthquake that struck the Haitian capital city of Port-au-Prince and the surrounding area on Jan. 12, World Wide Village’s main focus became initiating a community health recovery effort in the Caribbean country.

As a result, Smith joined a team of doctors and nurses from World Wide Village and responded to the aftermath by flying to the country and providing aid to the nearly 3 million people affected by the disaster.

“I want you to understand just how far the donated money goes,” Smith said to the enthralled students. “Every single penny helps.”

While Smith was in Haiti, her team transformed a school into a working hospital, with each room devoted to a specific type of care or treatment.

“The kids there aren’t able to go to school right now,” Smith said.

Because the medical team did not have all the supplies doctors normally have in the United States, Smith said they had to make due with what they had.

“We’re very spoiled here,” she said.

As a result, the team had to create resuscitation masks for babies out of Dixie cups and deliver babies at night wearing flashlights on their heads.

“We were seeing about 300 patients a day from 7:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m.,” Smith said. “Sometimes we were up all night caring for patients.”

Smith said the Haiti residents weren’t the only ones that suffered during the earthquake and its aftershocks, though. Architecturally, the area struck did not fare to well.

“Some of the buildings looked like pancakes stacked on top of each other,” she said.

The West Liberty Elementary students, however, have already done their share to help both the Haitians affected by the earthquake and World Wide Village.

When the students held a coin drive for Haiti two weeks ago, elementary and middle school TAG (Talented and Gifted) teacher Pamela Miller-Dekeyser and elementary special education teacher Lisa Beal decided to donate the $1,982.39 collected to World Wide Village.

In an ironic twist, Dekeyser and Beal didn’t even know Smith was involved in the organization.

“I saw news articles on KCRG and in the Press-Citizen about a doctor from the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics that had worked with the group before and was getting ready to go back to Haiti,” Dekeyser said.

It was after Beal later talked to King that the two realized how close the connection actually was.

As a result, the school presented the nearly $2,000 check personally to Smith on Monday.

“We had no idea just how close to home this was going to be,” Beal said. “What a wonderful tie-in.”