Boehringer Ingelheim Employee Shares a Personal Account of the Haiti Earthquake

Ridgefield, CT, February 3, 2010 - We’ve seen news coverage of the recent earthquake in Haiti, the devastation it caused, and the outpouring of help from the U.S. and around the world. Below is another perspective -- a very personal account of what happened from Jeorgene Gaddy (pictured below) -- a Boehringer Ingelheim Roxane, Inc. employee who volunteered her time to help a Haitian orphanage not knowing that, while she was there, the nation would experience its strongest earthquake in over 200 years. Here is her story.

“I arrived in Haiti on January 8 as part of a church-based group with a goal to help children at the Destiny Village orphanage learn life skills, hoping in some small way it would help make their future brighter. The orphanage was about an hour from Port-au-Prince. The day of the earthquake, our team had traveled up a mountain by truck to feed the hungry and had just retired to a nearby village. As we stood on a beach enjoying a much needed soda after to the long trek, everything began to violently shake. My first thought was that we were being bombed. People were screaming “Seismic!” – the Haitian word for earthquake -- and running without purpose. A nearby in-ground pool rose up and shed its water. Statues fell over and crumbled as the ground split open. Screams then turned to tears.

We took a truck to pick up the children at school and found them terrified and wanting to be held. On our way back to the village, people had lined the streets and were talking, trying to figure out what had happened and what to do.

The saddest thing to me was the look of hopelessness on the faces of those who had so little to begin with, and now had lost so much more.

Men from our group went to the local hospital to see if they could help there and returned calling it the “house of horrors.” If a person wanted a sheet on their bed there, they had to bring it along, as well as a bucket to go to the bathroom. It was also important to bring a family member to serve as a nurse as there was no staff – only one or two doctors for so many injured people.

The most uplifting thing I saw was the strength of community all around. People gathered night and day to talk and support one another. I remember a vendor with a cart whose sole focus was to share the food with those who needed it. Daily rituals that had stopped in the emergency began to re-emerge. I have a vivid picture of a mother who methodically fed her children at the side of a road.

Two days later, I went to the US embassy in Port-au-Prince and, after waiting all day and evening on the grass, I was able to leave the island via a C-17 cargo plane to McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey. Two flights later, I was back home in Columbus.

When I returned to work, I struggled at first to process my emotions, as I had been living in survival mode for days. My coach was empathetic, allowing me to talk about my experience, and I was strengthened by the outpouring of support from my co-workers, who had posted their thoughts and prayers on my Facebook page while I was away.

Back at work, I read about Boehringer Ingelheim's immediate and generous response to the urgent need in Haiti through the company’s product donation program and its collaboration with organizations like AmeriCares and Catholic Medical Mission Board. I feel proud working for a company with such generosity for those in critical need.”

Editor’s Note: All of the Boehringer Ingelheim Cares Foundation's product donation partners (AmeriCares, Direct Relief, Catholic Medical Mission Board and MAP International) are on the ground in Haiti and actively delivering assistance.