JANUARY 20, 2010

The day started well: I had my first shower in four or five days. It was a moment of pure joy – not just for me, but for all those I came into contact with.

Giles Whittell and I went to St Damien’s Children’s Hospital in Port-au-Prince where we had been told that they were carrying out amputations on children and adults to prevent the spread of gangrene, which can set in within 24 hours of an injury and is almost always fatal within a week without surgery.

The hospital is clean and earthquake-proof and was the only one to survive last week’s quake. We were taken around by Father Peter Arteaga of the Foundation of Our Little Brothers and Sisters, which runs St Damien’s.

We stopped at a room for those who have no chance of survival, where Father Peter administered the Last Rites to Monnaie Molencina, a beautiful young girl who had suffered severe head injury in the earthquake. I was invited to photograph this very private moment and did not want to refuse. It was incredibly sad and I had to fight back the tears. I shook hand with the parents, who explained that she was their only daughter.

We then met Marie Doval, who had her right leg amputated on Sunday after being injured in the quake. She was bought in from outside Port-au-Prince and has no parents.

The doctors’ saw used for cutting through bones during amputation was only designed to last a small number of times, so they have been using a DIY hacksaw blade.

We then where invited into surgery to witness Youseline Paupilaire having her foot amputated due to gangrene.  They used the hacksaw.

It was about 4pm by the time we had filed the photographs and copy back to the paper from a very useful internet point only a few hundred yards for the hotel we are staying at. The man who seemed to be running it asked Giles if we could get in touch with Serena and Venus Williams to ask them if they could fly him out of Haiti!

Later we got a call from a colleague that a rescue was taking place at Lalue district in a supermarket. Rescue workers were trying to rescue a 26-year-old woman, named Natalie, who had now been trapped under the rubble for a week. 

After several hours she was freed and promptly asked one of the French team that saved her to find her mobile phone so she could tell her family that she was alive.

As Natalie was freed, rescue workers and journalists applauded. She sang a hymn and smiled broadly.

She had a tear of joy in her eyes.  It made me wonder how many others could still buried under the rubble.

Chris Harris, Port-au-Prince