Medical Airmen return from humanitarian mission in Guatemala

  • Published
  • By Tech. Sgt. Jason Schaap
  • 931st ARG Public Affairs
MCCONNELL AFB, Kan. --  It didn't take long for Staff Sgt. Crystal Herrington to realize she was in for a long two weeks.

Sergeant Herrington, who returned last week from a 15-day humanitarian mission in rural Guatemala, had a window near her in an old school room that was her Guatemalan dental office. In between pulling rotted teeth from children as young as 4 years old, she could see the crowd outside.

"It just goes and goes," Sergeant Herrington said, describing the massive line of people she saw every day. "It was never ending."

When the 15 days was over, the 35-member medical team she supported had treated more than 8,000 Guatemalans. The dental portion of the team pulled more than 700 teeth.

"We were just rocking," Senior Master Sgt. Edward Espinoza said, referring to the speedy rate he watched people move through the makeshift clinics. Sergeant Espinoza served as an interpreter during the mission and like Sergeant Herrington, was one of six 931st Aerospace Medicine Flight members sent to Guatemala as part of a medical readiness training exercise, or MEDRETE.

The MEDRETE is an important component of New Horizons, a series of joint and combined humanitarian assistance exercises U.S. Southern Command conducts in Latin American and Caribbean nations annually. They generally take place in rural, underprivileged areas and provide much needed services while giving deployed U.S. military forces invaluable training.

Sergeant Espinoza's first experience with a New Horizons mission was "awesome...yet sad." He spent much of his time translating for the dental portion of the team and was shocked by how many young children needed "black, rotted" teeth pulled.

It was the preceding pain from a needle, filled with anesthetic, and poked into the roof of their mouths that shocked the children, Sergeant Herrington said, "especially if they were really small."

"They scream loud," she said. "The crying is the hardest."

Some of the little patients tried to grab the needle from her. Some closed their mouths down on the needle. Fortunately, a dentist from Guatemala's military was on hand to help.

"He would take them if they were kicking and screaming," Sergeant Herrington said. "He was used to it."

Staff Sgt. Loni Geihsler provided administrative support during the mission. The constant flow of people was "overwhelming," she said, but "not in a bad way." Her 931st coworkers and the Airmen they worked with from Travis AFB, Calif., expected to be busy.

What Sergeant Geihsler was not expecting was the true extent of poverty the people lived in. The roads that led to the towns where they set up clinics were engrossed in trash.

"You can't explain it to somebody," she said. "You have to see it yourself."

The hotel team members lodged in was high quality by the local standards, Sergeant Herrington said. But the dirty blankets they slept with and the filth that surrounded them was closer to military field conditions.

"I took cold showers for two weeks," she said.

And still, it didn't take long for her to look past the screaming children, the unwashed linen and endless lines of deprivation. Would she do it again? She countered without hesitation: "Oh yeah I would."