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AID MISSION Jacksonville man risks life to provide aid in devastated Nepali village Comment By Ryan Pfeil Mail Tribune MailTribune.com By Ryan Pfeil Mail Tribune Posted May. 14, 2015 at 1:52 PM Updated May 15, 2015 at 9:11 AM By Ryan Pfeil Mail Tribune Posted May. 14, 2015 at 1:52 PM Updated May 15, 2015 at 9:11 AM » Social News One minute, the scene on the Nepal riverbank was calm enough: villagers washing their clothes under sunny skies as a dump truck loaded with food and supplies rumbled past on a narrow mountain road. Then the terrain began to thrash, throwing out angry tremors that pulsed through the dump truck and surrounding hillsides. Jacksonville resident Brian Smith, one of the truck's passengers, threw open the passenger door and jumped out. Then he watched a wave of earth and rock freefall to the river bank on the waterway's opposite side, scattering villagers. "People are screaming. Villagers are screaming. They're running up and down the road," Smith says during an interview via Skype from Kathmandu Thursday. "There was so much dust in the air." Smith, 45, has been in Nepal since Sunday providing aid following a 7.8 magnitude earthquake that tore through the country April 25, leaving a trail of destroyed structures and an estimated 8,000 dead. His nonprofit organization, Helping Assist Nepal's Disabled, is one of many organizations and individuals converging on Nepal to offer their assistance. The second earthquake, 7.3 magnitude, hit Tuesday as Smith was en route to one of the region's many remote mountain villages. Arrival Smith's zeal for Nepal began in 2007 after he pushed through a life-threatening bout of high-altitude pulmonary edema and summited Mount Everest that year. He's been to the country several times since then, giving aid to health camps and colonies for people stricken with leprosy and assisting with medical emergencies, among a host of other health-focused tasks. Following the recent earthquake, he began his sixth trip there, already planned but pushed up because of the disaster. Getting there was a slow process. Smith arrived Sunday, two days before the second earthquake hit. Numerous planes had converged on Kathmandu's airport, turning the skies overhead into a merry-go-round as pilots waited for their turn to land. Smith's plane stayed in that holding pattern for two hours. "I've flown all over the world on a number of flights, and I've never had that happen," Smith says. "We were flying with 10 other airplanes in a loop, just all together, looking for a place to land." A soup of dense brown and white clouds smothered the ground. But his plane finally landed, and he got to work the next day. Through a series of contacts and social networking, he met up with a team. They began preparation for an aid mission up to Rautbesi, a network of remote villages — also called a village development committee — where about 750 families lived. Team members heard it had received no aid since the initial earthquake struck the country except for a military operation to remove the dead, a reported 23 in Rautbesi alone, along with 150 injured. "No food had gotten in, no other aid support," Smith says. The second quake The members of Smith's team would be the first to make the trip, and they had their work cut out for them. Rautbesi is in a region called Nuwakot, a dangerous swath of the country Smith says is steeped in the human trafficking trade. His team stepped aboard a dump truck packed with 8,000 pounds of food — rice, lentils, oil and salt — and, at 5:30 a.m. Tuesday, began its eight-hour journey. The strip of mountain roads was narrow, sometimes only suited to a small car or motorcycle. The dump truck bounced violently along the ungroomed trail. The second quake hit five hours into the trip, collapsing hillsides and sending people running to avoid being buried in rubble and dust. Smith watched as homes across the river above the banks collapsed, evaporating in dusty plumes. "Just imploded. Totally imploded. A mushroom cloud went up 100 feet in the air," he says. "These plumes are going up, 'Boom, boom, boom, boom.' We counted six plumes go up from collapsing houses." The team spent about another half hour at the spot before moving on. "We decided there was no way we could reach them where they were at," Smith says of the affected village, adding the military was able to respond. "We continued on up the road with our supplies." The second quake added at least 110 more people to the death toll, along with 2,300 more injured, according to The Associated Press. The journey Not too much farther up the road, Nepali soldiers stopped the truck. No aid convoys had gone beyond their checkpoint, and anyone venturing past did so at their own peril, Smith says. Not just for the shaky terrain, but for the villages the truck would pass through en route to Rautbesi and the mobs of desperate people that could overrun the vehicle. "They actually gave us 10 Nepal soldiers, locked and loaded with rifles and ammunition, and they climbed in," Smith says. As the truck passed through several of the destroyed villages, inhabitants ran at the truck, only to back off when the soldiers pointed their guns. The narrow road went narrower at some points, with the truck's tires dancing along the edges of several steep drops. "We always positioned ourselves so we're on the inside (road side) of the truck, so that if it goes (over), we have a 50 percent chance of jumping," Smith says. Fresh landslides triggered by the second quake draped themselves across the roads, sometimes requiring the soldiers to jump out and clear the way. The greeting in the villages they passed changed the farther they went, and they began to receive cheers and applause. Smith recalls a boy standing on his home's doorstep, cheering, "America, America," as the dump truck rumbled by. Rautbesi Smith arrived at Rautbesi, the truck's ultimate destination, and the team unloaded its food. Each family received about a week's worth. The head of the series of villages, comparable to a mayor, met with team members and showed them around. Homes had been leveled or left uninhabitable by the quake, missing roofs and walls or scarred with ugly cracks. Some families had cobbled makeshift shelters together from the rubble. Smith met with survivors and listened to their stories, assisted by a translator. "You don't get numb to it," Smith says. "I think we were at a loss for words when we were in the village. You don't even know what to say." Also in dire straits was a tent erected as a temporary labor and delivery center for Rautbesi's 78 reported pregnant women, 20 of whom were due soon. "The ceiling is full of holes," Smith says. "There's a broken rickety bed in there, a small bag of medical supplies. There's literally nothing. These mothers are going to be delivering in the mud." Equipping Rautbesi with a better facility for deliveries is Smith's current project. His sister, Amber Shields, who works as a labor and delivery nurse at Asante Rogue Regional Medical Center, is en route with donated medical supplies. Meanwhile, Smith and others are putting together birthing kits, and have purchased four new tents and several tarps they plan to lash together for the clinic, creating separate delivery and recovery "rooms." "It's turned our focus to an immediate need, a desperate need," Smith says. "We can save babies' lives." Smith has since returned to Kathmandu, preparing for a second delivery of food and medical supplies to Rautbesi on May 25. He's surrounded by communities of tents that have popped up around the city since the first earthquake hit. They cover sidewalks, parks and other open spaces, he says, erected by people who lost their homes. Smith is tired and dealing with a cough because of the country's poor air quality, weary also because of what he's seen. "You're just surrounded by human suffering," he says. The country's needs are still endless, he adds: food, clean water, medical care and recovery of dead bodies. It's a daunting scene, but staying focused on Rautbesi — one piece of the broken puzzle — and the mission at hand is motivating. "We can't save the country. We can't even save the region, but we can make a difference in a village," Smith says. "That is what keeps us going." For more information about Helping Assist Nepal's Disabled, or to donate, visit www.handnepal.org . Reach reporter Ryan Pfeil at 541-776-4468 or [email protected] . Follow him at www.twitter.com/ryanpfeil . By Ryan Pfeil Mail Tribune MailTribune.com By Ryan Pfeil Mail Tribune Posted May. 14, 2015 at 1:52 PM Updated May 15, 2015 at 9:11 AM » Comment or view comments Reader Reaction » STAY INFORMED Email NewsLetter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. Southern Oregon Directory Featured Businesses Loading... 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