A local TV news reporter and photojournalist were not prepared for what they saw in Haiti: a level of destruction and human suffering difficult to articulate. The visual record from one week after the earthquake is not easy to watch, but worth the extended airtime it gets this weekend.
A half-hour special, “Devastation in Haiti: A Colorado Lifeline,” will be broadcast Sunday at 5:30 p.m. on KMGH-Channel 7. Medical and charitable organizations featured in the report will be linked on the station’s website, .
KMGH reporter Dayle Cedars and videographer Major King were embedded with the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne Division of Ft. Bragg, N.C., to cover relief efforts in the wake of the disaster. While echoing much of the national reportage in terms of the horrible conditions and psychological trauma of the people of Haiti, the Channel 7 report focuses on local volunteers.
Among those featured: Ron Edgers, a Colorado anesthesiologist who works at Rose and Porter Adventist hospitals; Corey Townsend of “For His Glory,” an Aurora church running an orphanage in Haiti; Greg Hynes of Airlife Denver, the Emergency Medical/Critical Care Transport Service of HealthONE locally; Kristi Ladd of the International Medical Corps based in Lakewood; the Colorado-based pilot and co-pilot of a United plane that was the first commercial flight into Haiti after the quake; the Christian charity H.E.L.P. International of Johnstown, CO, and soldiers Kevin Lidstone of Centennial and Ben Oliver of Craig, interviewed in Port au Prince.
The magnitude of the crisis is difficult to distill in video clips. And while hours of footage are available in a Channel 7 podcast (“Haiti Unedited”), one fleeting image sums up: In the midst of a short-handed and poorly-supplied emergency medical unit in the street, sits a large plastic tub labeled “body parts only.”
As the heartbreaking pictures roll, KMGH’s Cedars observes some 70 orphans in need of fostering. That raises uncomfortable comparisons to the recent illegal international adoption attempts by a group of American missionairies. In this case, “they just need a place to live temporarily,” Cedars said. “It is clear these kids will be going back to Haiti.”
The stench and unsanitary conditions can’t be fully conveyed on the screen, but the report makes an impact. And the local connections drive it home. The crisis is ongoing.
“It will be decades,” King said.
Joanne Ostrow: 303-954-1830 or jostrow@denverpost.com
