US Resumes Evacuations of Injured Haitians Following 5-Day Suspension

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Feb. 1) – Nineteen Haitian medical patients, whose injuries ranged from head and spinal cord trauma to pelvic fractures and severe burns, were airlifted from the airport in Port-au-Prince today to Palm Beach, Fla., on an Air Force helicopter after the White House reinstated medical evacuations late Sunday following a five-day suspension.

The evacuations were halted Jan. 27 out of concern U.S. hospitals were being strained, according to White House Assistant Press Secretary Tommy Vietor.

"Having received assurances that additional capacity exists both here and among our international partners, we determined that we can resume these critical flights," Vietor said.

Twelve of the patients evacuated to Palm Beach today were being treated on the USNS Comfort, a hospital ship sailing off the shores of Port-au-Prince. The rest were patients at the University of Miami's clinic on the Port-au-Prince airfield.

Jose Guzman for AOL

After a five-day suspension of medical flights, the U.S. Air Force transported 19 patients from Haiti to Palm Beach, Fla. to receive medical treatment. Here, a patient waits at the Port-au-Prince airport to be evacuated.

The Air Force, which has evacuated about half of the 500 Haitian patients flown to the United States for treatment, typically flies one medical evacuation per day, with a capacity for as many as 25 patients.

The U.S. Navy is building a 250-bed clinic on two soccer fields near the U.S. Embassy, mainly "to relieve the burden" on the Comfort, said Navy press officer John Schofield.

Jose Guzman for AOL

Col. Leonardo Protenna, the chief of the Air Force's medical operations in Haiti, said some critically-ill patients have continued to be evacuated on private air ambulances.

Haitian patients in critical condition have continued in some cases to receive medical evacuations on private air ambulances, said Col. Leonardo Protenna, an internist and the chief of the Air Force's medical operations in Haiti. None of the hospital facilities in Haiti currently can perform neurosurgery or handle severe burn patients, he said.

Protenna could not say whether any patients had died during the five-day suspension.

"There are people who die every day in Haiti, and I can't tell whether it's because they haven't been Medevaced or not," he said.

Rose Laure Louis' house in Port-au-Prince collapsed in the Jan. 12 earthquake, injuring her parents, her sister and a cousin. Her sister, six months pregnant, stayed two days in the hospital and was among the 19 Haitians sent to Palm Beach.

"I don't know how things work there, but I am happy that we are going," said Louis, 18, who was accompanying her sister. She prepared to leave for the United States in a shower cap, shorts and sandals, carrying a plastic bag full of her sister's children's dolls.