Mission group has provided dental care to Haitian village for years.
LAND O'LAKES, WI -- Dr. Peter Schindelholz and his mission group have been traveling to the Haitian town of Fond Jean Noel to provide dental care to the town's residents. But this year's trip was different, an earthquake jolted the island.
"We were on the second floor of a school and I heard a noise and I thought maybe it was a helicopter and I've never heard a helicopter there before. Then all of a sudden, things started moving and it's like, what's going on? Then all of a sudden people started hollering, 'Earthquake get out! Earthquake get out!'" described Kathy Johnson of Bruce Crossing.
Although Fond Jean Noel wasn't hit as hard as other areas, it still made traveling home difficult.
"When we went to Jacmel on our way to leaving, we saw many buildings that were collapsed and rubble through the streets, and we were unable to get through the streets. We bought some shovels and still hoped that we were going to go to Port-au-Prince, but we turned back and got supplies and went up the mountain and tried to figure another way," explained Dr. Peter Schindelholz.
And destroyed buildings weren't the only things the group witnessed; they also encountered death.
"There was a boy at the medical clinic that was dying. He was hit by a rock. He was tending his goats and a rock fell on his head. The doctors had stitched him up without anesthetics and he was not coherent. He was breathing, we picked some palm branches and laid them down on the ground and laid the boy down on the ground and shortly after that, he passed away," Schindelholz said.
Despite the adventures of this year's trip, Schindelholz and his group plan to return to Haiti again next year to provide their services.
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