Raymond Saintoute is a 28-year-old man who was injured in a motorcycle accident on December 24, 2011. His hip was dislocated and fractured. He went to the Medecins Sans Frontieres Hospital but they told him they didn't have the personnel or equipment to do the surgery that was required. They gave him a reference letter and told him that he would have to find another hospital.
Almost 1 year later he still hadn't been able to find anyone to help him. He couldn't walk. His hip was out of socket and damaged and his leg was now shorter than his other leg. He couldn't put his foot on the ground and due to the length of time that passed since the injury he had a "drop" foot. We brought him to the Adventist Hospital in Carrefour. Dr. Craig Nelson is an orthopedic surgeon from Cure International. The Cure team examined him and scheduled Raymond for surgery in December.
December 2011 Raymond had the accident. December 2012 he had his surgery. The doctors formed the hip bone and put it in place. Metal bars and pins held everything together.
He has lived with metal sticking out of his hip and leg for almost 5 months now, but that ended last week when the doctors performed another surgery to remove the external fixator.
In another week he gets the bandages from the surgery removed and then will be needing to spend at least 4 months doing physical therapy in order to learn to walk again. The doctors told him that one day he would be able to walk. I told him that physical therapy is hard work and it might hurt, but that he needed to do this if he wanted to walk. He told me he that he will "show courage to endure what must be done" to make him walk again. Pray for Raymond, that he may show endurance and perseverance with his physical therapy and that one day he may lay his crutches aside and walk again. Pray for the Cure International personnel who are active in several countries providing the gift of healing for many people. Below are a few videos of the Cure team in action and the people they help:
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