Posted on Tue, Jul. 27, 2010

San Luis Obispo County prosecutor Karen Gray recently traveled to Haiti to volunteer as a nurse at Hospital Adventist in Carrefour, a suburb of Port-au-Prince.

Gray, who was a nurse before becoming a lawyer, said the damage caused by the 7.0-magnitude quake Jan. 12 is widespread.

“I couldn’t see any signs of progress at all,” Gray said. “I didn’t see any heavy equipment where I was, and lots and lots of people are living in tents.”

Gray was in Haiti from July 2 to 16. She was among a group that included Haitian-American volunteer nurses.

Gray heard about the volunteer relief effort through a colleague at the District Attorney’s Office and decided to help because of the ongoing need in the quake-devastated country.

She said customs hang-ups have been a major problem, including shipments of medical supplies from the United States.

“Needed humanitarian aid isn’t being let into the country,” Gray said. “We were constantly short on things.”

But Gray said the Haitian people “by and large are wonderful and resilient,” and the medical teams improvised to work around problems.