NEAR LES CAYES, HAITI - Dustin Palmer is a Marine from Charlotte, North Carolina who wondered what his purpose might be on this trip to Haiti.  Today, that became as clear as the line between life and death.

75-year-old Ti Blancs and his daughter sped into the Cambry medical clinic on a motorcycle taxi.  Palmer helped the lifeless Blancs into a wheelchair, and the man passed out.  “I thought he died right there,” said Palmer, who rushed into the clinic to alert the team to the man who he said was “cold, clammy, and unresponsive.”

Dr. Roy Blank, Grace Mathis, PA-C, and physician assistant Adriana Lever gathered up IV supplies for a patient they felt fairly certain was suffering from severe dehydration brought on by cholera.  The medical team turned a covered hallway outside the clinic into a cholera treatment zone and Palmer laid the lifeless man onto a drape on the floor.

Treatment for cholera is simple.  IV-fluids, antibiotics, rehydration salts.  “It’s not the infection that kills you,” said Lever, “it’s the dehydration.”  Every patient our team has seen has had some level of dehydration.  Water here is precious and scarce.  And it’s incredibly difficult to start an IV in the blood vessels of a dehydrated patient.

“Dr. Blank got it on the first try,” said Lever.  “But it took us nine more tries to get the second one in.”  Blancs regained consciousness, and was able to take oral antibiotics after the first IV bag was in.  Within two hours, he walked out of the clinic to catch another motorcycle taxi home.  His daughter believes he got cholera from locally made peanut butter.

“And that’s how our day started,” said Palmer.  “I couldn’t believe that man who I thought was dead, walked out of here like that.  And to think that I played a role in saving his life, it chokes me up.”

“I was expecting to see sick people,” said Mathis.  “I wasn’t expecting to see someone so near death.  And play a part in bringing that man back from near death, is just… Overwhelming.  Awesome.  Amazing.”