News

Friday, February 5th, 2010

Amputee Hopes to Help her Rescuers

by wendy

Christa Brelsford

Brelsford’s injuries caused surgeons to amputate her right leg below her shin.

Since then, she’s had four surgeries in twenty days, but before leaving she said she would form a nonprofit charity called “Christa’s Angels,” according to CBS4 news partner The Miami Herald.

“If Americans give a little back, it can make a huge difference,” Brelsford told the newspaper.

She hopes her charity will help fund a literacy school that crashed down during the earthquake. The idea is to award a scholarship to one of the “angels” who aided in pulling her from the crumbled building to safety.

For her rescue, she thanks Wenson Georges, a Haitian who worked with a friend Gerald Lumarque and her brother Julian to lift the concrete slabs that had enveloped Christa. Ninety minutes later, she was freed.

Georges cradled her in his arms as Lumarque drove them on his motorcycle to a U.N. Peacekeeping Mission office Leogane. During the 20 minute ride, Georges comforted her.

“It was cold, and he didn’t have a shirt, but he still slept on the ground and stood with me all night long to make sure I was OK,” Brelsford said.

It was from her hospital bed at Jackson Memorial Hospital that Brelsford began brainstorming. She wants the proceeds to benefit the rebuilding efforts for the Cabois Literacy School in Dabonne, where she had been volunteering. But she also hopes to raise money to provide Georges with a scholarship.

“His mom sells coffee in the market,” Brelsford recounted. “He talked about wanting to come to the U.S. to see what life was like. He had never lived in a place with running water. He’s never lived in a house with electricity.”

Days after her amputation, Brelsford spoke to CBS4′s Peter D’Oench from her hospital bed. She said, “I’m so thankful to be alive. There were so many ways in the past few days that I could be dead.”

Brelsford lost her right foot. After her right leg was crushed when the building she was in collapsed, it took a half an hour to rescue her. Doctors had to amputate her foot.

“I thought it was a truck that hit the building,” said Brelsford. “It was not a stable building.”

Her brother escaped. She could not.

“I slipped going down the stairs,” said Brelsford. “And my legs were crushed.”

Brelsford, a native of Anchorage, Alaska, said, “The first thing I thought of was to get out of the house. Then I thought, protect my head and neck. That’s what they taught us in Alaska when we had drills. That’s what they tell you to do.”

“I knew my legs were under pressure,” said Brelsford, who lay in a bed at JMH with bandages covering her right foot. “I knew the circulation was cut off.”

Her brother was less seriously injured and is being treated in Haiti.

“I’m so fortunate to have the care that I am getting and feel so sorry for the people in Haiti,” said Brelsford. “They live in such intense poverty. This could set them back 50 years.”

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