It takes a lot to shake up an emergency room (ER) nurse.  But for Ronda Johnson, who works at Trinity Bettendorf’s ER and volunteered to go to Haiti shortly after that country’s devastating January earthquake, the concept of “trauma” will never be the same.

“You can’t go somewhere like this and not have it change you,” said Johnson, who has been in nursing for 18 years.  “CNN and all of the other images you see on TV don’t do it justice.  They don’t even come close.”

Johnson traveled with fellow Trinity Bettendorf ER nurse Catherine Jones to Port-au-Prince in the weeks following the catastrophic 7.0 earthquake that devastated Haiti on January 12.  Johnson and Jones were two of 12 from across the country who provided aid as part of a group coordinated by international relief organization Project Helping Hands.  Johnson had heard the group’s founder, Jeff Solheim, speak at a medical conference a few years ago and was impressed with their outreach efforts in third world countries.

“I contacted him afterward and told him, ‘If you ever need help, let me know if you have a need greater than the response,’” Johnson said.  “Immediately following the earthquake there was an urgent call put out; the need was that great.”

That’s an understatement.  After paying their own way to the impoverished island and bringing only the medical supplies they could carry with them, the nurses were inserted into an area with an 80 percent mortality rate.

While there, they witnessed lines of people waiting for hours in the sweltering heat for food and care.  They encountered survivors with tuberculosis begging for a job because their starving family needed food more than they needed medical attention.  And they were overcome by the smell of 60 decaying infant bodies, crushed in the rubble near an orphanage.

Johnson shares more details in a series of video interviews posted by the hospital.