Below is an article posted on the Kansas City Star’s Web site today. The article features comments from our medical operations director, Brad Gautney. To view the story online, click here. The text has been provided below for your convenience.

By JIM SULLINGER

The Kansas City Star

When Brad Gautney of Kansas City arrived in Haiti on Thursday, the scene was almost unbelievable.

“It’s just so bad you can’t imagine,” said Gautney, the medical operations director of the One 5 Foundation, a medical relief organization with headquarters in Leawood.

He found 28 children from an orphanage on their own, and one child had been killed by a collapsed wall.

“We left two members of our team there to set up barbed wire so they could be secure, and we’re going right now to get them water,” he said in a cell phone call Friday to the foundation. “We’re trying our best right now to have an impact where we can.”

The barbed wire was to prevent looting of the orphanage’s food supply, he said.

Gautney said medical relief organizations were scouting locations Friday to set up clinics around Port-au-Prince, where there is a critical need for nurses and doctors, especially orthopedic surgeons.

“There are a lot of broken and crushed bones and so surgery and orthopedics will be desperately needed from the Kansas City area,” he said.

One5 is already assembling a local team that hopes to get into the country within the next week, but that won’t be easy.

“It’s extremely difficult if you’re not military or government personnel to get in,” he said.

Gautney and a team from another medical organization found a private pilot Thursday to fly into the Port-au-Prince airport. Only private planes have gotten in because all civil air traffic is closed and only military planes are coming in now.

Donations were critically needed so One5 and other groups can buy medical supplies, he said. The group is working with Missions of Hope to try and move medical personnel and supplies into the country in the coming days and weeks.

“The frustration is there is so much to do, and it’s so difficult with the lack of resources to do it,” he said.

Kansas City group mobilizes medical team to Haiti
by Jessica Machetta on January 13, 2010

As the details continue to unfold about the impoverished country of Haiti and the damage done by a massive earthquake there, one Kansas-City area group is on the way.

Brad Gautney, Medical Director for One5 Foundation, is headed to Haiti with a team to assess the situation there. Once there, they’ll provide medical and logistical support. Chairman David Miller says not much is known until the medical team gets inside the borders.

Gautney is flying into the Domenican Republic via commercial air today. Once inside the Haitian borders, he’ll communicate with One5 to let them know what’s needed in the way of help and medical supplies.

Miller says the group is looking for donations, medical supplies and volunteers who can travel to Haiti, especially those with medical training. He says they’ll be working with the medical community in Kansas City to collect medical supplies.

The Missourinet will be checking in with Gautney later this week to get his first-hand accounts from Haiti.

Jessica Machetta reports [1:10]

Jessica Machetta interviews David Miller, One5 chairman [2:33]

(http://www.missourinet.com/2010/01/13/kansas-city-group-mobilizes-medical-team-to-haiti/)