‘It was chaos’

Kirk Dominic and 18 others entered Haiti from the Dominican Republic, but, he said, words cannot adequately describe the journey there and how it changed him.

Dominic, Costa Mesa’s deputy fire chief, said that as he rode in a truck following a United Nations convoy into Haiti, the jungle canopy was so low it would slap you on the head if you poked your head out the window. As they snaked through the humid jungle, they’d see dead bodies on the roadside, and towns lay in ruins when they would reach their destinations.

“It was chaos,” Dominic said from his fifth-floor office in Costa Mesa City Hall. “You can’t go to that place and not be affected. If you’re breathing air, it will affect you.”

Now back in Orange County, Dominic said he has an even greater appreciation for the life he has and shares with his wife and three kids.

Dominic spent Jan. 24 to 31 in Haiti to provide medical assistance as part of Hope Force International, a Christian-based organization out of Nashville that looks to provide short- and long-term assistance to disaster-stricken areas.

Dominic said he learned of Hope Force through fellow parishioners at Rock Harbor Church in Costa Mesa.

The group is only 7 years old but already 1,000-strong with reservists, said Vice President Cherie Minton. Hope Force had people in New Orleans four days after Hurricane Katrina, and stopped its work there four years after the levees crumbled.

“Our mission is to create a pathway of service for people who desire to make a difference in the immediate aftermath of a disaster,” Minton said. “It’s more than having the skills, it’s how you do it that makes a difference.”

Dominic was in the Army for 22 years, rising to the rank of major. When the initial earthquake Jan. 12 in Haiti killed thousands and toppled buildings, Dominic said he felt the urge to help.

“I enjoy serving others in times of need. It’s a calling to help serve our fellow man,” he said.

That service entailed camping in the jungle and treating Haitians in field hospitals. Dominic said that in four days of work, they treated more than 500 Haitians.

One example was at a stop in a village near their camp in Leogane. They met a woman who was eight months’ pregnant with twins and having complications. The next morning, the group had to take her to the military because local hospitals were full or couldn’t handle premature babies, he said. On the ride to meet the U.S. forces, Dominic was caring for a bleeding elderly woman.

When they got there, the military had room for only one person on the helicopter to take them to the medical ship, the USNS Comfort. They took the pregnant woman and regrettably had to send the elderly woman back home, Dominic said.

He later got word that the woman gave birth to a healthy boy and girl.

“God had his hand in saving those three lives,” he said.

Dominic said his time directly assisting around the world is over, and now he’s training others — a recent training session at Mariners Church in Irvine drew more than 100 volunteers.

For more information on Hope Force, visit www.HopeForce.org or call (615) 371-1271.