The Surgeon Who Operated Without Power

In 2010, when a 7. 0 earthquake leveled Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Dr. David Vanderpool arrived at a makeshift clinic with almost nothing. No electricity. No sterile operating room. No anesthesia machines. Other medical teams looked at the devastation and waited for proper equipment to be airlifted in. Vanderpool did not wait. Armed with a headlamp, a pocketknife he had sterilized with bottled water, and thirty years of surgical training, he began operating on crushed limbs in a parking lot.…