Dr. Michael Regan met the girl — 14 years old, bright-eyed and sweet — in a hospital tent filled with flies and patients. Her lower leg had been crushed during Haiti’s January earthquake. She’d received treatment afterward, but in the nonsterile medical facility an infection had set in. Regan changed the pins in her leg, cleaned out the infection, gave her antibiotics. In the United States she could have had surgery in a state-of-the-art facility and would have been fine. 

Not in Haiti. Regan predicted her leg will have to be amputated within a year. And there’s nothing the Auburn orthopedic surgeon could do for her — or for so many others in the very same tent.

“Oh, God, I can remember them all. There were so many of them. I’m a softy for kids, though,” he said. “I would have taken that kid in a heartbeat. If I could have found a way to get her here, she would be here.”

Regan returned from a stint in Haiti in March, one of three doctors with Central Maine Orthopaedics in Auburn to go. The doctors — Regan, Jeffrey Bush and David Brown — each spent a week in the impoverished country, taking turns away from their orthopedic practice this spring so while one was in Haiti two others could cover patients in Auburn.

Regan was the first to go. It was the kind of humanitarian trip he had always wanted to make.  The earthquake just made him want to go more, and right away.

“Right after the earthquake, literally within a few days, I said ‘I have to go there,'” he said. “When earthquakes occur, you’re either killed or you break your bones.” 

It took months to clear his schedule in Auburn and coordinate the trip. In March, Regan flew there as part of Project Medishare, a nonprofit group organized to improve health care in Haiti. 

Regan didn’t know what to expect and purposely didn’t try to find out ahead of time. He was going no matter what.

Still, conditions there were worse than he imagined. Surgeries were done in a tent, with multiple operations performed at the same time within feet of each other. Instruments were cleaned with bleach, scrubbed by someone using a toothbrush, then left out overnight on a table where flies frequently landed.

“There wasn’t a better option,” Regan said. “It took me a few days to realize it wasn’t going to get better than this.” 

But while the facilities were worse than he’d imagined, the people were more resilient than he’d imagined. He still remembers one patient who’d fractured his thigh in two places two weeks earlier.

“He walked in on crutches,” Regan said. “Around here you’d be whisked in with an ambulance blaring and you’d have surgery in six hours.  Two weeks out he comes in, on crutches, his leg floppy like Gumby. I mean, he didn’t complain about pain. Tough as nails.”

Then there was the 12-year-old whose wrist was deformed because it wasn’t fixed immediately after it was broken. The elderly woman whose leg he had to amputate due to gangrene. The 14-year-old girl who stole his heart, the one he predicts will lose her leg in the next year.

Bush went to Haiti after Regan.  He, too, was struck by the hope and resilience of the people who faced such dire circumstances. One of them, a boy named Andre, went to Bush for an infection in his knee.

“He was just a sweet little boy about 10 years old. His father had passed away in the earthquake, and he was with his mom. They were basically homeless, and I didn’t see him once without a smile on his face,” Bush said.

“He had this secret handshake that he wanted to make sure everyone knew. He was just an amazing little guy that I won’t forget. And there were plenty of others. There were people who had been through things that you can’t imagine.”

Brown went to Haiti in May. He can’t forget the 24-year-old who was brought to him after getting hit by a car.

“They don’t have ambulances down there. They don’t have an EMS system. If you get hit like that and you’re fortunate enough to have somebody drive by who’s got a pickup truck, they’ll throw you in the back of their pickup truck and get you someplace. And basically this poor young guy, 24-year-old guy, essentially bled to death. They don’t have blood transfusions. They don’t have blood banking,” Brown said. “They’re bad injuries, but they were certainly survivable injuries, injuries he would have survived in the states.”

Brown said his time in Haiti left him with a newfound appreciation for the medical facilities in the United States and for the toughness of the Haitian people. But he also left humbled and frustrated.

As a highly trained surgeon, he said, “You’re not nearly as important as a roof, four walls, a floor, some plumbing, basic transportation resources, basic logistical support, blood banking, things like that. The best operation that I can do means nothing in a situation where you don’t have those resources.”    

He believes the relief effort has suffered because no single organization is handling donation and volunteer logistics. 

“That’s not the Haitians’ fault. That’s our fault,” he said. “I thought that was stunning.”

Despite the difficulties, all three doctors said they hope to go back. 

“I would return in a heartbeat,” Brown said.

[email protected]