From the minute he set foot in Port au Prince, Haiti, almost two months after the monster earthquake that killed at least 290,000, injured 300,000 and left one million people homeless, Dr. Owen O’Neill witnessed the devastation and despair.

“It’s going to take forever to rebuild that country,” said O’Neill, medical director of the Department of Hyperbaric Medicine at Phelps Memorial Hospital Center. “Going to a place like that and seeing what goes on and all the devastation, we still have to appreciate what we have here. We still have it pretty good here with our health care system.”

Through a program called Project Medishare, O’Neill, along with Dr. Frank Lattarulo, had an opportunity to work in a field hospital in Haiti from March 6-13. A six-story hospital that once stood tall in Haiti crumbled from the January 12 earthquake, killing every doctor, nurse and patient that was inside.

O’Neill, who slept on a cot with a mosquito net during his stay, cared for wound and burn victims. Lattarulo ran the pediatric unit.

“I thought it was something that needed to be done and I did it. I would do it again,” O’Neill said. “There isn’t one person who wouldn’t go back if we had a chance. It is a life changing experience. It was for me.”

The field hospital was similar to a M.A.S.H. unit with tents, plywood floors and military-style cots. Operations were done on picnic tables, there were no blood transfusions and x-rays were limited. In fact, it wasn’t uncommon for fractures to be repaired without x-rays.

“We had a lot of technical equipment, which was surprising,” O’Neill said. “We were missing a lot of the basic supplies. We had a good team. There wasn’t any red tape. Down there you made do with what you had.”

Prior to the earthquake, Haiti was the poorest country in the western hemisphere with 80% of Haitians living in poverty. With 300,000 homes destroyed by the earthquake, and most surviving residents living in tents, families were in dire straits. As a result, hundreds would line up at the field hospital in the early morning hours since they knew they could get at least one meal a day. Others would intentionally burn themselves with the hope they would be flown to a hospital in Florida.

“There were a lot of crush injuries,” O’Neill said. “There is a problem with amputation in Haiti, where you can’t work with fake limbs or without limbs, so many would tell you to do anything but cut it off. They were, for the most part, very appreciative of what we did for them.”

O’Neill had a chance to take a three-hour tour with United Nations security and saw first hand the massive destruction. Every church in Port au Prince was demolished, yet every crucifix stood in place.

He admitted being somewhat disappointed when he returned to the United States at being unable to follow-up on the condition of the more than 60 patients he served and said he dreams a lot about his experiences, but has “no bad thoughts” about his first international volunteer trip.

“I felt it was amazing,” O’Neill said. “Coming back here I don’t sweat the small stuff.”