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Horizon Air Flight Attendant Joins Relief Effort in Samoa
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12/21/2009 9:39 am (PT)
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When we watch TV news coverage of natural disasters across the globe, it can be hard to feel the full extent of the human impact. But for Ty Tufono, a Horizon Air flight attendant, the Sept. 29 earthquake and subsequent tsunamis that devastated the Samoan Islands region – located in the South Pacific about halfway between Hawaii and New Zealand – hit very close to home, in every sense.
Tufono is Samoan and has numerous relatives still living on the islands of Samoa and American Samoa. Several are among the people still missing since the 8.0 magnitude earthquake produced tsunami waves up to 20 feet high that wiped out many beachside villages. To date, nearly 200 have died, hundreds have been injured, and thousands have been left homeless.
When Tufono learned of the situation there, she went into action, organizing several 10-person teams of medical professionals from the Seattle-area Samoan community to travel to Samoa on their own time and aid tsunami victims in the hospital and in villages.
"Our team hoped that doing a medical mission in this targeted way would make a huge impact in a short amount of time," Tufono says. "It did more than that – it created hope in our people."
Tufono organized the effort with the help of the Samoa Health Mission, a New Zealand-based group of health-care volunteers. She joined the group as the representative for the United States soon after the tsunamis hit. Tufono says Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines were instrumental in organizing this effort. Alaska donated seats to the groups for flights from Seattle to Honolulu, while Hawaiian did the same for the flights from Honolulu to Pago Pago, in American Samoa.
In her first trip to the islands, Tufono and her team arrived Oct. 18 and stayed for 10 days. After less than 12 hours there, they experienced a small taste of what the island has gone through.
"The first day on the job, we were at the hospital and felt a 6.2 magnitude earthquake that put the entire team on edge," she says. "Fortunately, it resulted in no tsunami warning, but the people of Samoa were on ‘auto mode' with these tremors, and some patients started unhooking themselves from IVs and machines to get to higher ground."
Members of the team worked 10-hour shifts at the Lyndon B. Johnson Tropical Medical Center, working alongside the hospital's medical staff in the Emergency Room, Intensive Care Unit, and the surgical and pediatric wards.
"They were in such need of staffing that they have begged their retired nurses to come out of retirement and assist," Tufono says.
Although she has no extensive medical background herself, Tufono accompanied the team in order to document its work and help on village excursions.
"Some of the villages were really badly hit, and there was a major need for treating people with bacterial infections," she says. "Because LBJ is the only hospital on American Samoa, there was a dire need to send medical teams out to the remote villages."
Tufono met countless people who were not only injured and had lost their homes, but had experienced the tragic loss of friends or relatives.
"It was in the hospital that my life changed," she says. "Each and every one of the people I met lost a loved one, their home, or both. And despite these devastating losses, they all thanked me for visiting with them and smiled so genuinely. Those amazing folks are my heroes."
After returning to the United States for a week in late October, Tufono left with a second team of 10 medical professionals for another trip. Another team traveled to Samoa without Tufono in late November, and she accompanied a fourth team in early December.
Volunteers for outreach efforts like this often find they gain as much as the people being helped.
"After everything I saw and experienced in Samoa, I figured out that I was led there to learn from these people," she says. "The mission was not just about saving them, but saving me also. Saving me from taking for granted all the important people in my life. Saving me from not appreciating the time I have with my family and true friends. This trip truly humbled me."
Those interested in making a donation to the relief effort can do so through the Red Cross or World Vision.
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