Despite the quakes, 2 doctors operated on 50 earthquake victims in 20 hours
After the pandemic, especially the doctors showed a great example of sacrifice in the earthquake. Doctors who left their families rushed to save patients. The earthquakes in Kahramanmaraş saw intense requests for hospitals, especially due to fractures and crushes. Doctors and health workers rushing to hospitals started their duties from the first hour of the earthquake. Medical Point Gaziantep Orthopedics and Traumatology Specialist Assoc. Dr Ali Murat Calendar said he left his family and rushed to the hospital from the first hour of the earthquake.
“We were two doctors in our field, we performed more than 50 surgeries”
He stated that on the day of the earthquake, they performed more than 50 surgeries along with his fellow physician in his field, Medical Point Gaziantep Orthopedics and Traumatology specialist Assoc. Dr Ali Murat Calendar said: “We slept at night like everyone else in our house. With the earthquake, we got up and went out with my family. Then I called my hospital and asked if the patient would come. heard news that patients are coming from our hospital, I immediately went to the hospital. I arrived at the hospital around 5 o’clock in the morning. All the doctors and staff arrived. We started working in our hospital in the morning. Especially fractures and crushes were common, we treated those. There was a lot of swelling after the crush. There were so many bruises that we had to cut them. We were 2 people in our field, we did more than 50 surgeries that day. In particular, there was a lot of leg injuries. Unfortunately, we had to amputate the arms or legs of the patients who were late and badly crushed. But unfortunately this is a treatment method,” he said.
“We carried out our operations swinging”
Dr. Dr. Calendar said, “We were going about our operations while aftershocks were happening. We also had surgery during the second earthquake of 7.6. Waving we carried out our operations. Because we couldn’t let go. Fortunately, our hospital survived. We didn’t understand how time passed. I left the hospital at 1:00 AM. We felt all the shocks. When we die, we die with our patient,” he said.
“We had no time to think about our family”
Emphasizing that they don’t have time to think about their own families, Dr. Calendar said, “We haven’t had a chance to think about our family. My family called after every shake. They said, are you okay? We said we were fine. We continued our activities.” My children were very scared,” he said.