Help in Haiti was do it yourself

As relief efforts continue in Haiti, we’re hearing more and more first-person accounts of what happened on the ground during and just after the quake, and how little help there was in the aftermath. In the face of little help from the authorities or other facilities in the area after the quake, many people in Port-au-Prince resolved to do it themselves.

After the quake partially collapsed the house they were staying in, Jean Yvon Kernizan and Selena Rhine and their families went into the surrounding area to pull people out of the rubble. Soon, their house became an impromptu medical center, where a few hundred injured sought help. Kernizan and Rhine administered medical attention with no training and little more than some water, Q-tips, and a bottle of hydrogen peroxide.