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Articles from the Wheelchair Foundation headquarters in Danville, CA and major news source outlets.

Chris Rudd, an attorney and Board member, sends us a text message of his impressions from within Haiti.

“We arrived to Port-au-Prince late Wednesday with doctors, nurses, a former 82nd airborne medic, and about 3 tons of supplies.  The US troops made us feel right at home at a campsite for the few hours until dawn.  By early AM, we split into 2 groups.  One joined Scott Stapp of Creed, who came days earlier and volunteered himself into setting up an ad hoc hospital some distance from Port-au-Prince.  Jeff and Glen joined Scott.

The other group, myself included, got in touch with the 82nd airborne which escorted us in delivering supplies and medical personnel at three sites around Port-au-Prince.  I cannot describe the devastation we saw adequately with just words, but footage taken by the DC3 crew who helped organize the trip will do a better job.  Both groups worked almost 20 hours after landing, then met to drive together to a small hotel still standing about an hour from the airport. 

Today, some doctors worked at the makeshift University of Miami hospital at Port-au-Prince airport.  However, word had spread that we were here with chairs, doctors, and supplies at Port-au-Prince airport.  So we set up a makeshift aid station inside the airport and brought patients to it, as well as going out to aid stations and clinics where we learned wheelchairs, doctors, or supplies were needed.

Downtown Port-au-Prince is surreal.  Some buildings seem okay while one next door was flattened.  The smell of sewage and rotting bodies is overpowering in some areas.

Thank you to the doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals who dropped everything to come here where needed most.  Thanks to the US Military men and women here keeping order.  Thanks to Scott Stapp of Creed who saw a need and raced to fill it.  Thanks to Ben Drew of John Muir and Dr. Barry Latner of Concord Hospital who like Scott, raced to go where the need was by getting us supplies.”

These pictures were taken with Jeff Behring’s phone. Jeff, along with two doctors and two nurses, drove for two hours outside of Port-au-Prince to setup a makeshift medical clinic. They gave wheelchairs to people in the village to help transport wounded and sick people to the clinic. The Haitian people were very malnourished and standing 50 deep in line to see doctors for medical attention. Conditions are very grim.

Charli Butterfield of the Wheelchair Foundation

Charli Butterfield of the Wheelchair Foundation

As a first hand report of our first trip into Haiti to provide doctors, nurses, medical supplies, wheelchairs, and other emergency supplies, everything went very smoothly.

We departed from the Ft. Lauderdale airport at 9:15 PM for an arrival into Port-au-Prince at 11:00 PM last night.  Everything was dark, so we couldn’t see much from the air on our approach.  Haiti has a curfew for everyone which takes effect at 7:00 PM, so the team was forced to sleep at the airport until 6:00 AM, when the curfew is lifted.  We were then able to travel to our assigned posts.  The landing was smooth and uneventful.  We were met by the US military, who was very helpful.  We were told when we departed Ft. Lauderdale that the US military needed ice.  We brought in lots of ice, 15 pizzas, and Coke.  The military was very excited and more than willing to assist us in the offloading of all our medical supplies and wheelchairs.  They let our doctors, Wheelchair Foundation volunteers, and DC3 volunteers set up a makeshift camp right next to their central base right at the airport.  MedShare rendezvoused with us at the airport to help organize the distribution of medical supplies, and Dr. Janette Nesheiwat led several of our doctors and volunteers to a small village where people were desperately seeking and in need of medical attention this morning.  Jeff Behring reported that these small villages were living in tents and had very long lines of people waiting for medical attention.  They were doing the best they could but were still in need of more medical supplies such as aspirin, blood pressure medicine, thermometers, blood pressure cuffs, etc.  We are actively searching for these items to bring with us on our next trip into Port-au-Prince on Saturday.  We have another group of doctors and nurses arriving and another plane being loaded with more medical supplies that are being trucked down right now from Medshare’s Atlanta, Georgia distribution center.  We are also working with 4 constituents representing the “Clean Water for Haiti” organization.  We couldn’t ask for a better group of people to work with.  Everyone is really pitching in and doing the best they can to help those in need of medical attention and mobility.  I am so proud of our mission, and of those who have volunteered their time and supplies to help.

Charli Butterfield

At 8:30 this morning an MD-87 filled with over three tons of emergency medical supplies and wheelchairs departed Stockton for a humanitarian aid trip to Haiti.  There were also 8 doctors and trauma nurses, a documentary film crew and Wheelchair Foundation (a Division of Global Health & Education Foundation) representatives on board.  This is a story of many different groups collaborating together in a short period of time to provide important relief to a country in crisis.  We will be periodically providing updates of the trip’s progress and experiences.

WheelchairFoundation-MedShareloadingShortly after the catastrophic 7.0 earthquake devastated Haiti on January 12, 2010, Dan Catullo III, the founder of DC3 Music Group (www.dc3global.com), contacted the Wheelchair Foundation to see if its founder, Ken Behring, would be interested in loaning his private jet to send physicians and medical supplies to that country.  He agreed to lend his plane and crew if sponsors could be found for the fuel.  Catullo immediately began contacting his associates in the music industry.  Scott Stapp, the lead singer for Creed, and New Kids on the Block stepped forward with substantial donations and encouraged other bands to spread the word on their websites.

Catullo then called Chuck Haupt at Medshare (www.medshare.com), to see if they would donate emergency medical supplies.  Haupt responded immediately with 8 pallets of materials like sutures, gauze, syringes, surgical gloves, etc., which are so desperately needed in Haiti.  They have been loaded into the cargo section of the plane along with 30 wheelchairs donated by the Wheelchair Foundation.  Medshare has also generously agreed to transport another 7 pallets of medical supplies from Atlanta to Fort Lauderdale for the second flight to Haiti.  These supplies will be given to Partners in Health (www.pih.org) at the Port-au-Prince General Hospital.

John Muir Hospital in northern California also played a major role in supplying antibiotics and other requested supplies.  Jeff Behring, the son of Ken Behring, and Glenn Perry, a longtime supporter of the Wheelchair Foundation, had met Senator Bill Frist at an event the previous week.  Frist, a surgeon, had just returned from a week in Haiti and told Jeff what supplies were the most important.  When Perry contacted Ben Drew at John Muir, the hospital provided everything on Frist’s list.

You also need a “slot time” to land in Haiti.  Phil VanderWilt, the MD-87 pilot, was on the phone most of a  day trying to secure a position.  He finally got one that was six days away.  The plane will land in Fort Lauderdale Wednesday night, pick up more doctors, and head to Haiti.  The jet will then be unloaded, extract doctors and specialists from Partners in Health and Direct Relief International that have already been on the ground for a week or so and return to Florida.  Two days later it will transport another 16 doctors and two tons of medical supplies to assist in the relief effort.  The plane will then depart for California.

The Wheelchair Foundation would like to commend Jeff Behring, Dan Cathullo and Chris Rudd for their tireless efforts and passion in making this project come to fruition.  We also want to thank the musical performers and their fans for their invaluable support.  The people of Haiti need your help now and into the future to rebuild their lives and their country.

The Wheelchair Foundation is a Division of Global Health & Education Foundation.

gerry riley

Wheelchair Foundation Transportation Coordinator, Gerry Riley

Joe Hackman discusses the challenges facing Non Government Organizations delivering aid internationally with Gerry Riley of the Wheelchair Foundation. Gerry Riley has been the Transportation and Logistics Manager for the Wheelchair Foundation since 2003. During that time, he has helped ship nearly 1,500 orders, a total of more than 650,000 wheelchairs, all over the world. He has learned a lot about the problems that can be encountered in trying to send aid. The Foundation provided wheelchairs to several countries following the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, the Pakistan earthquake and Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and the Chengdu, China earthquake in 2006. Gerry is proud to have been able to help after these disasters. He’s also happy to have helped get aid to those with daily mobility needs throughout the world.

SOURCE: Blog Talk Radio