A day in the life of John Doe
Today I went downtown to see what the so-called looting is really like.
(Someone commented in an earlier entry asking me what I think about the suggestions some have made that the violence here has been overblown by the media and that, actually, things are quite peaceful. Well let me tell you what the situation is like: there is certainly looting, and there is almost no law enforcement on the streets downtown, but at the same time it doesn't feel at all threatening - I feel totally safe walking around on my own with a 10k camera round my neck. Violence happens though. Every time another building gets demolished or cleared, gangs of people charge in and take what they can get, and frequently come to blows over it. More often, though, the "looting" is rather peaceful and is basically just people who have nothing trying to get hold of things they can sell - bits of metal, planks of wood etc. Most journalists here would say the same thing, so if it is getting "overblown" all I can say is that when we file material, it's the photos and video of violence that sell and so as always you end up with disproportionately more of it on TV and in newspapers. But that is kind of how news works. To a point it's fair: you can't really tell an interesting story about the quiet, peaceful parts of town, and if I did not many clients would be likely to broadcast it.)
Now the streets downtown are really gutted. It is just rubble and crushed cars everywhere, and people wandering around with wheelbarrows gathering what they can find. A lot of stuff I can't even film because it's unbroadcastable - severed hands in the street and that sort of thing - and there is a thick dust in the air everywhere. I am travelling around slowly on the back of a moped I've hired for the day, and every now and then when I see something interesting I get out and film.
At one warehouse there were crowds of people pouring in and coming out with stuff, and a huge push of people trying to get in. As I milled around on the rubble nearby, there were two gunshots from inside the building. They just sounded like little pops really. Next thing, everyone starts stampeding out into the street. Someone tells me the police have arrived and started shooting to break up the looters. Nervously, I edged through the gate into the yard, which is full of smoking barrels of litter. There are lots of people there, signalling to me to come forward and see what's happened. So I pick my way over the floor (actually the collapsed roof of the building next door) and towards the other side. I see a photographer in the crowd that I know - a French guy who also works for AFP. He's hammering on a door to get into the building.
When the door opens there is a man inside on the floor, covered in blood. The photographer and another guy pull him out and we drag him through the crowds back to the street, lay him down. 'Is he alive?' I am yelling to the photographer. It occurs to me I should check his pulse: he has one. The photo guy is telling people to call for some help, but who is there to call? Instead we drag him to the nearest main road and flag down a taxi, stick the guy in the back with the photographer and send it to the hospital. I follow, courtesy of my motorbike guy.
It seems that the police were on a higher level than the looters: they fired down through the floorboards. One man, I am told, was killed; the one we brought out was knocked over in the resulting stampede and fell two storeys.
At the hospital it's complete chaos. I knew it would be because I was filming there two days ago and it's just the same. The US Army guys won't let Haitian drivers through the gates, so the taxi has to stop and the guy is carried out of the back and stretchered into triage. A very stressed doctor from Utah examines him, gives him morphine, tells me he has an open skull fracture and is probably brain-damaged. He gives him a 20 percent chance of survival. If they had an incubator, maybe they could do more, but in these conditions...
They can't get any sense out of him at all, even his name, so they label him John Doe.
A bearded French surgeon passes. He is asked if he could help. The French guy looks at John Doe and tells the orderlies to stretcher him through to the OR. I say "OR" but you have to imagine a big tent. They do so, and a French team from Medecins du Monde washes the guy's head injury, and stitches him up. He is shouting out through most of this despite the morphine.
I've followed him for maybe four hours by this stage. The bearded doctor comes up to me, shaking his head. But, "It's good news," he says. The injuries are more superficial than they first appeared, and there appear to be few lesions on the brain: this guy has every chance of making a decent recovery.
I go over and look at him again, trying to remember his face. As I'm leaving I look back and I can see the doctor wipe his forehead and turn to the next stretcher lying waiting. There is a queue of four people lying on the floor, all injured. Every day here some five or six "looters" are killed by police.
(Someone commented in an earlier entry asking me what I think about the suggestions some have made that the violence here has been overblown by the media and that, actually, things are quite peaceful. Well let me tell you what the situation is like: there is certainly looting, and there is almost no law enforcement on the streets downtown, but at the same time it doesn't feel at all threatening - I feel totally safe walking around on my own with a 10k camera round my neck. Violence happens though. Every time another building gets demolished or cleared, gangs of people charge in and take what they can get, and frequently come to blows over it. More often, though, the "looting" is rather peaceful and is basically just people who have nothing trying to get hold of things they can sell - bits of metal, planks of wood etc. Most journalists here would say the same thing, so if it is getting "overblown" all I can say is that when we file material, it's the photos and video of violence that sell and so as always you end up with disproportionately more of it on TV and in newspapers. But that is kind of how news works. To a point it's fair: you can't really tell an interesting story about the quiet, peaceful parts of town, and if I did not many clients would be likely to broadcast it.)
Now the streets downtown are really gutted. It is just rubble and crushed cars everywhere, and people wandering around with wheelbarrows gathering what they can find. A lot of stuff I can't even film because it's unbroadcastable - severed hands in the street and that sort of thing - and there is a thick dust in the air everywhere. I am travelling around slowly on the back of a moped I've hired for the day, and every now and then when I see something interesting I get out and film.
At one warehouse there were crowds of people pouring in and coming out with stuff, and a huge push of people trying to get in. As I milled around on the rubble nearby, there were two gunshots from inside the building. They just sounded like little pops really. Next thing, everyone starts stampeding out into the street. Someone tells me the police have arrived and started shooting to break up the looters. Nervously, I edged through the gate into the yard, which is full of smoking barrels of litter. There are lots of people there, signalling to me to come forward and see what's happened. So I pick my way over the floor (actually the collapsed roof of the building next door) and towards the other side. I see a photographer in the crowd that I know - a French guy who also works for AFP. He's hammering on a door to get into the building.
When the door opens there is a man inside on the floor, covered in blood. The photographer and another guy pull him out and we drag him through the crowds back to the street, lay him down. 'Is he alive?' I am yelling to the photographer. It occurs to me I should check his pulse: he has one. The photo guy is telling people to call for some help, but who is there to call? Instead we drag him to the nearest main road and flag down a taxi, stick the guy in the back with the photographer and send it to the hospital. I follow, courtesy of my motorbike guy.
It seems that the police were on a higher level than the looters: they fired down through the floorboards. One man, I am told, was killed; the one we brought out was knocked over in the resulting stampede and fell two storeys.
At the hospital it's complete chaos. I knew it would be because I was filming there two days ago and it's just the same. The US Army guys won't let Haitian drivers through the gates, so the taxi has to stop and the guy is carried out of the back and stretchered into triage. A very stressed doctor from Utah examines him, gives him morphine, tells me he has an open skull fracture and is probably brain-damaged. He gives him a 20 percent chance of survival. If they had an incubator, maybe they could do more, but in these conditions...
They can't get any sense out of him at all, even his name, so they label him John Doe.
A bearded French surgeon passes. He is asked if he could help. The French guy looks at John Doe and tells the orderlies to stretcher him through to the OR. I say "OR" but you have to imagine a big tent. They do so, and a French team from Medecins du Monde washes the guy's head injury, and stitches him up. He is shouting out through most of this despite the morphine.
I've followed him for maybe four hours by this stage. The bearded doctor comes up to me, shaking his head. But, "It's good news," he says. The injuries are more superficial than they first appeared, and there appear to be few lesions on the brain: this guy has every chance of making a decent recovery.
I go over and look at him again, trying to remember his face. As I'm leaving I look back and I can see the doctor wipe his forehead and turn to the next stretcher lying waiting. There is a queue of four people lying on the floor, all injured. Every day here some five or six "looters" are killed by police.