New Hampshire Doctor Returns Home After Assisting Earthquake Victims in Nepal

Dr. Charles Blitzer says the devastation in Nepal is tough to capture through a camera lens

A New Hampshire doctor is back home after spending three weeks in Nepal, helping earthquake survivors recover from broken bones and open wounds.

Dr. Charles Blitzer says the devastation in Nepal is tough to capture through a camera lens.

"It's hard to quite describe the chaos," he said while showing us his photos.

Exactly one week after the 7.8 magnitude quake, Dr. Blitzer arrived in Kathmandu with a group of other doctors from the United States.

Two days later, the group was taken by helicopter to a remote mountainside village where they set up a mobile medical unit.

"Ninety to 95 percent of the houses were leveled," Dr. Blitzer said. "I mean just destroyed."

The orthopedist is on the Emergency Response List for International Medical Corps.

Dr. Blitzer spent three weeks in Nepal and was in his hotel when the second major tremor hit on May 12th.

"The ground was still shifting a couple minute later, there were waves in the ground," he explained.

Dr. Blitzer said the operating rooms were no longer structurally sound, so he and other doctors started performing surgeries in tents.

"There was a newborn baby here, because right behind us they had done a c-section, and we were operating right there," he said pointing to a photo of the inside of a small mobile tent.

Dr. Blitzer says it'll take months, if not years, for these communities to recover. But he says the Nepali people haven't wasted any time.

"Already they are just back to work," he said.

And with that, Dr. Blitzer will also head back to work at Seacoast Orthopedics and Sports Medicine in Somersworth, ready and willing to lend his hands the next time mother nature strikes.

"Hopefully there are not any big disasters any time soon," he said. "It's a bit stressful, but rewarding." 

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