I Ran to Help

Humanity and harmony in the aftermath of disaster.

by Christopher T. Born , Ian Smith Born

For most Americans, the Dec. 27 earthquake in Bam, Iran, was yet another tragedy that we watched safely from home. For the city, however, the effect was real. The earthquake struck at 5:28 a.m. and measured 6.8 on the Richter scale. Days earlier, a comparable earthquake had killed two in central California. In Iran, more than 95 percent of the city’s infrastructure was destroyed. In 13 seconds an estimated 35,000 people were killed, trapped under the mortar of mud that served for 2,000 years as the common construction material in this desert.

The Saturday after Christmas, I awoke to a phone call from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), part of Homeland Security. Six hours later I was in Boston, preparing for the first official American flight to Iran in 25 years.

I flew to Iran as part of the International Medical Surgical Response Team (IMSuRT), a unit of civilian volunteers that provides medical care for mass casualties. As the co-director of Temple University’s orthopaedic trauma service and chairman of the disaster response committee for the Orthopaedic Trauma Association, I’d been recruiting orthopaedic surgeons from around the country for this team.

Still, none of us knew what to expect. The last time an official U.S. "delegation" had landed in Iran was in 1980, a disastrous military mission that failed to free the 63 American hostages held in the American Embassy takeover in Teheran. Since ousting the Shah in 1979, the fundamentalist regime of the Ayatollah Khomeini had whipped up tremendous Western/American hatred in a poisonous relationship that has smoldered for 25 years. We were the "American Satan," they part of the "axis of evil." Since then, the Iran-Contra affair, the downing of a civilian Iranian airliner, oil and trade sanctions and allegations of terrorism.

Tensions were high when we landed in the provincial capital of Kerman. But in the face of overwhelming devastation, politics played little part. Despite arriving in a C-17 military transport plane, our team of medical personnel was escorted into Bam.

The streets were littered with the living and the dead. We found acres of fallen brick, mortar and twisted piping. The buildings that stood were uninhabitable. There was minimal electricity and no running water. Most survivors had lost family members; their possessions were buried under rubble. People stared into space through the dust and smoke of the small fires they used both for warmth and cooking.

The injured came by automobile, cart and on the backs of friends and relatives. Our hospital consisted of a handful of tents, partitioned into separate sections for men, women and children according to Muslim law. During the next 84 hours we treated over 725 patients, performed 10 operations and delivered six babies. We ate MREs (Meals Ready to Eat), drank bottled water and slept in any convenient corner. We dug our own latrines and dreamt about showers. Our security was a strip of yellow caution tape that ran around the compound. Occasionally there appeared a nervous-looking conscript of the Iranian army carrying an AK-47.

There was no question we felt vulnerable. Afghanistan was 200 kilometers away. We were a high-profile group in an open city. Our location was no secret. Yet the local government with whom we worked, and the people of the city who came for treatment -- or just to see the Americans -- were extremely gracious. Many expressed both gratitude for our help and sadness over the years of political separation. They were surprised that we were there as civilian volunteers and embraced us for our humanitarian efforts. Just before we left, representatives of the regional government presented the team with a floral wreath with an inscription in poorly translated English that began, "In the name of God … we would like to congratulate the birthday of jesuschrist … and Thankyou for your assist … to afflicted people of Bam."

The message was profound. The author had addressed the fundamental differences that have separated our two nations, and also the Muslim and Christian worlds. It implied a common-sense means by which these differences might be mitigated. To our team, the inscription translated as, "We recognize that we have different beliefs. We respect those beliefs. We thank you for being part of the brotherhood of man."

We left almost as quickly as we had come, leaving our medical supplies, tents, generators and trucks to an international relief group. We were met in Boston by a delegation from Washington that included the undersecretary of Homeland Security. They spoke a few cautionary words about "cracks" in the diplomatic doorway. I know that as most of us began the journey to our respective homes, we thought not of the politics, but of the survivors. We hoped that the city of Bam would rebuild. We hoped the survivors would find peace. We hoped to travel to Iran again, and perhaps meet with the man who had written the inscription.

Christopher T. Born, M.D., is the co-director of Temple University Hospital’s orthopaedic trauma program. Ian Smith Born is his son. If you would like to respond to this Slant or have one of your own (800 words), contact Howard Altman, City Paper editor in chief, 123 Chestnut St., third floor, Phila., PA 19106 or e-mail altman@citypaper.net.

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