COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO. -- The American Red Cross Pikes Peak Chapter is honoring hometown heroes highlighting individuals and organizations who exemplify courage, kindness and unselfish character through their acts of heroism in our local community.
FOX21 News will be highlighting this year's winners.
This year's Hometown Adult Hero is actually a group of 16 men and women who traveled to Haiti shortly after the devastating earthquake in January of 2010.
The team of doctors and nurses said when they heard the news about the earthquake they knew they had to help, but it wasn't easy for them to get there, proving even more so that they are true hometown heroes.
Within minutes of hearing about the devastation in Haiti, Dr. Richard Meinig, an orthopedic surgeon at Front Range Orthopedics, decided somehow he was going to get there.
"I heard the initial report driving home and I just had this gut feeling that this was a really bad circumstance, and I just said you know this is something I could probably help," Meinig said.
Meinig contacted several aid organizations but wasn't getting anywhere.
"The next day I had called and submitted resumes to different organizations volunteering my services, and when I didn't hear back by the end of the week I decided that somehow I would make my way there and do it on my own," Meinig said.
Meinig began doing his own research and stumbled upon Jim Smith, a doctor in Pueblo, who at the time was already in Haiti.
"Through the social networks, Facebook and text messaging, I found out there were some people who had made it down there from Colorado and that Jim Smith from Pueblo, who had had an organization and an effort down there before, was down there, and it was through him that we really had the confidence to make a go for it," Meinig said.
He started reaching out to coworkers and said he quickly gathered a team of volunteers.
"It was a group of volunteer physicians and nurses that sort of self assembled," Meinig said. "They were all people that I had worked with, and the first couple I had asked were climbing partners of mine, so I knew that these were people that could function in a combat environment, if you will, but as word spread that we were gonna go we had a bunch of volunteers and then it grew into an enormous and amazing group."
But there was still the challenge of actually getting to the disaster zone.
"It was just again through fortuitous contacts that we made contact with Bob Penkus, the local car dealer, who had a King Air airplane, and he made it happen in the end, because when I called to get a charter down there it was $30,000 to $50,000 to go the Caribbean, and then when I said that I wanted to go to Haiti it was like 'click' hang up on the phone," Meinig said, "So if hadn't been just for local people pitching in it would have never really happened."
Penkus chartered the team and all the supplies they could fit in two trips into the heart of the chaos against the advice of government officials.
"I mean, obviously going down there was if you had to ask the answer was no and we were getting reports from the State Department and military saying 'don't go,' you know 'it's unsafe' and you know in a technical sense it is unsafe but we never felt endangered by the people themselves," Meinig said.
Together the team performed more than 100 surgeries in Haiti.
"We were a group of orthopedic surgeons, so we knew from initial reports that there were a lot of crush injuries. You know everything in these third world countries is built out of substandard cinder block and masonry and concrete so people sustained these massive crush injuries," Meinig said. "There had been a lot of amputations done in the first few days by people that had gotten down there, and when we got there we were able to take care of open fractures and do some definitive fracture care."
Meinig described the trip as surreal.
"Everything was heaps of rubble. They were burning trash to stay warm and generate heat and light. Bodies were still being pulled out of the rubble and being hauled off in trucks and also being burned," Meinig said. "There was no water, there was no electricity, it was really just a scene that you couldn't really imagine."
Despite his and the others heroic actions, Meinig said he doesn't consider himself a hero.
"I sort of felt like what I did was sort of a gut reaction, probably a bit impulsive and maybe a bit foolish, but I just admire the people that go to these places in times that are not disaster and do the good work that they do," Meinig said.
Meinig said everyone needs to take advantage of the opportunity to help when they can.
"In a way we're inundated with the media with constant stories of tragedies and disasters, and I think at one point in your life you just need to react to just one of those stories and do something different, and I think that's what I did in this circumstance," Meinig said. "We just live in the most fortunate society and culture on the planet, and you constantly have to revisit that, and say you know it's worth taking the time and the risk to make it a little better for the less fortunate, and there's no shortage of opportunities."
The American Red Cross Pikes Peak Chapter will be honoring the ESPO communication dispatch center and the rest of the hometown heroes winners at a dinner and fundraiser March 10 at the Antlers Hilton. For reservations call 719-785-2711.
2011 Hometown Adult Heroes:
Richard Paul Meinig, MD
Jaime Green
Alan W. Bach, MD
Carolyn Jean Cothran
David Christopher Cory, MD
Jim Heildelberg
Justin Crowley, MD
Dan Balch, MD
Tiffany M. Willard, MD
Khurram A. Khan, MD
Sean M. Karre, MD
Teresa Karre, MD
Douglas D. Gray
Deanna Walker
Paul B. Rahill, MD
Bart Bachura
TV Station Profiles & Public Inspection Files forKXRM