'NYC Medics' Answer International 911 Call

In 12 years as a paramedic on the streets of New York City, Phil Suarez has learned more than he needs to know about the frailty of human life. "After a really bad shift with a car wreck or something, you come home and all you want to do is hug your kid and tuck him into bed," says the married father of 5-year-old Julian. "Some nights I fall asleep just watching him breathe."

But last October, when Suarez, who works two paramedic jobs to make ends meet, saw harrowing images from Pakistan of the massive earthquake that took 73,000 lives--half of them children--he felt compelled to do more than just count his own blessings. "People were dying as the result of infection and trauma, and that's the paramedic's specialty," he says. "I said to myself, 'That's what we do.'"

Soon Suarez, 35, learned that a number of colleagues felt the same way. Intent on traveling to Pakistan to provide hands-on relief, they juggled shifts to get time off, cajoled bosses into granting vacation time and eventually collected $250,000 in donations and 10,000 pounds of supplies. Their group, now known as NYC Medics, came to number some two dozen EMTs, paramedics and M.D.'s, a few from as far away as California and Texas.

On March 6 Suarez and a team of 12 arrive in Islamabad and, after a four-hour drive along hairpin mountain roads in the shadow of the Himalayas, reach the place they will call home for the next two weeks: a field hospital on the outskirts of the village of Garhi Habibullah, 10 miles from the quake's epicenter. It doesn't take long for news of their arrival to spread through the tents that dot the hillsides. By 8:30 the next morning, 80 patients have lined up at the camp gate. One is Ambreen, a 10-year-old on crutches, grimacing in pain. Her father, Gulnaz, explains that she was injured in the quake and, despite three surgeries, still cannot walk.

Paramedic Chris Summers, 36, a former Coast Guard search-and-rescue boat-crew leader, begins to clean the wound on her leg. "That was when I realized the white spot I was scrubbing was actually the bone sticking out," he says. Summers spares her the news that she'll need yet another surgery. For now, she's burdened enough with fear of another quake. "If it happened once, it will happen again," she says. What pains her most, says Ambreen's dad, is not being able to go to school. Every day when her younger sisters come home with their books, he says, "she takes their writing slates and pretends she's teaching them."

Six months after the earthquake, much of its rubble has been cleared, but devastation remains: 3.3 million homeless, 10,000 schools destroyed, countless clinics and hospitals in ruins. In the immediate aftermath of the quake, nearly 1.3 million kids were inoculated against measles; today respiratory and intestinal infections are the most common health risks for people living in camps, half of whom are already weakened from chronic malnutrition.

Near midnight, sudden shouts from the guards herald an emergency. Arbab, a 3-year-old girl, has arrived in a truck after falling from a rooftop terrace and landing on her head. She is lying on a stained vinyl-covered examining table, her tiny feet trembling with convulsions. Working frantically, eight team members work to stabilize her with a breathing tube and a tangle of IV lines. Tufail, a Pakistani soldier and camp guard, watches the tense scene from the back of the tent, an AK-47 on his shoulder, prayer beads in hand. "I am worried," he whispers to paramedic Carl Otto, 63, a Vietnam vet. "It is good you Americans are here, but tonight I will pray to Allah as well. Do you know Allah?"

"Do we know Allah?" says Otto. "Why, of course we do. He's the reason we're here."