Inspired by Anderson

Hands-on in Haiti
Local women need supplies for relief effort

by Timothy J. Carroll
Reporter staff writer
9 hrs ago

A pair of Hoboken women with no prior training in disaster relief headed into the rubble of Haiti last month. Spurred by Anderson Cooper’s reporting on CNN and assisted by Facebook, they gathered a crew of medical professionals from across the nation and supplies from local donors and flew to the Caribbean determined to help the men, women, and children of the impoverished island nation crushed by a severe earthquake.

Next month, some members of their crew will return to provide whatever assistance they can, and they are again asking the community for help.

Allergies to amputees

Until its sale a few months ago, Dr. Muni Tahzib was treating children at Hoboken Allergy and Asthma, her pediatric practice on Hudson Street. Last month, she was delivering babies in Haiti.

A Hoboken resident since 2001, Tahzib now spends her days tending to her children. But after hearing the pleas of Anderson Cooper following the earthquake in Haiti, something clicked and she decided it was time to spring into action.
_____________

“When I first saw the wound, I was going to throw up.”
– Maryanne Fike
________
“[Cooper] kept saying, ‘Where are all the doctors?’ ” she recalled in an interview last week. “I’m here,” she answered to the television. “I have the money. I can go. I have the support [of my husband and my family].”

Within days, she was tending to seriously injured Haitians.

Meanwhile, flying back from Tokyo to Hoboken, Maryanne Fike, a resident of the mile-square city since 1985, was seeing the same devastating images on the television that Tahzib, her friend, was seeing back in Hoboken.

Fike, who works in commercial aviation financing, was returning from a speech before the Japanese National Diet, their parliament. Upon seeing the suffering of the earthquake victims, she thought to herself: “I’ve got to go to Haiti.”

As soon as she got home, she updated her Facebook with the same statement. She noticed Tahzib had just posted moments earlier: “I want to go to Haiti.”

She had found a travel partner.

---

This is only about one fourth of the story. To read the full story click here: "Hands-on Hoboken Women".