On the ground: Helena woman reports on medical aid efforts in overseas trip

She is making her fourth trip overseas to areas in need since Russia launched a war in Urkraine in February 2022. She left Helena on Sept. 4 and plans to spend five weeks overseas. This email from Hellermann arrived 11:28 p.m. Thursday.

Portions of this report have been edited for clarity.

The Middle East is in turmoil: earthquake in Morocco, floods in Libya.

It has changed our plans a bit as medical first-response teams in Turkey needed to leave for those new disaster zones. Our team split up.

Hands On Global has sent 3 people to deliver supplies in Ukraine and then fly to Turkey.

I came directly to Turkey to set up the mobile clinic with my team. We will be hearing from the Ukraine team soon and I will share the updates from the team on the ground.

They are heading to Lviv to meet up with some surgeons and deliver the critical trauma and ortho supplies.

I and my team arrived in Adana after long flight delays and then we drove 3 hours to Hatay, where we are working.

The devastation from the February 2023 earthquake is really unbelievable: miles of total destruction, people living in tents, under makeshift tarps and ISO (International Organization For Standardization) boxes. Rubble all over.

It seems the entire town will need to be rebuilt.

Saw only a few buildings that appeared slightly damaged.

Salvage teams are clearing away rubble and bodies are still being found.

We worked yesterday in the Syrian camp, such sadness, such need and it will be years and years before anything will change.

There is one toilet and one shower for a camp of 2,000+ people.

Potable water is scarce and no electricity. It is hot and the tents are sweltering in the heat. Apparently the tents and shelter offer no barrier when it rains.

Then the Turkish police showed up and we were told we cannot work at the Syrian camp. We finished with the patients, we had packed up and left wondering “Well now, we are given permission to work in the Turkish camps but not the Syrian camps, who have the most dire conditions.”

Again, the challenges of being a refugee.

It is so wrong, so heartbreaking and their needs so great. We are staying in a “marriage” hall that has been deemed safe by engineers. We are here with volunteers from Egypt, Brazil, Guatemala, Panama, Korea and Spain.

Global cooperation of humanitarians.

We sleep on cots, maybe there are 50 of us, forget privacy. We share 5 toilets and 2 showers but have internet and electric so we are good.

A Korean team cooks food for all the volunteers.

They also cook every evening for 1,500+ refugees who come here for food. We eat after them and much later.

There is an ngo (Non Governmental Organization) running a program for the displaced children.

There is such trauma in these kids. Some have lost family members, mothers fathers siblings. They seem so fragile.

We met a grandmother with her grandson, maybe 5 years old. He only survived.

She was crying and begging for help.

One of our translators who speaks both Arabic and Turkish showed us her home, almost a pancake, She was awakened by the first sliding motions then the major quake began. They were trapped in their house but managed to be dug out within hours.

Her school friend was not so lucky. She was texting on her phone that she was alive but trapped and was never rescued.

There were just so many needing rescuing. The immensity of it all is overwhelming.

The healing: physically spiritually emotionally and geographically will be long.

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