Comfort Returns From Haiti Mission

After spending the past seven weeks caring for victims of the Jan. 12 earthquake in Haiti, the Navy hospital ship Comfort arrived at Naval Station Norfolk, Va., on March 14. During the relief operation, Comfort’s medical staff took care of 794 Haitians who suffered injuries ranging from crushed limbs to gangrene, while its surgeons, nurses, and corpsmen performed 843 operations. Other crew members and staff cooked meals, worked with Red Cross and other volunteers translating conversations, and worked with other relief providers to aid people in the country, which was beset by severe poverty even before the earthquake destroyed much of its only functional infrastructure. Comfort will remain in Norfolk while most of its crew heads back to the ship’s home port, Baltimore. “What people did will affect medicine for along time, said Capt. James Ware, Comfort’s skipper. “People’s experiences and the lessons they learned will affect the way we treat earthquake-related injuries in the future.”