Local earthquake survivor returns home from humanitarian mission

Reported by: Sabrina Wilson, Reporter

Email: swilson@fox8tv.net

Last Update: 1/29 6:59 pm

New Orleans - Local nurse Marie Poux, who survived the earthquake while in her homeland helping orphans, returned home with an emotional account of the harrowing experience. Met by friends at Armstrong International Airport on Friday, Poux said, "I saw children dying next to me…all I remember I put my knees on the ground and I raised my two hands to GOD and I said have mercy." Poux operates an orphanage in Haiti.

Poux told FOX 8 News that the killer tremors happened on her birthday right after she left a Haitian hospital. She said, "It was my birthday that day so my plan was for my birthday to visit the hospital I was born [in] and to give gifts to the children that were born the same day with me and a special gift for the one born the same time with me." Poux said on the way from the hospital they stopped at a gas station and then the tremors started. She said, "I got out the car because the car was jumping up and down. People were calling me doctor, I said no I'm not a doctor, but I don't know GOD may give me inspiration what to do for those people. It was very, very hard, I mean I keep seeing those faces, those cries."

Poux runs an organization that works to help Haiti's young, called 'Hope for Haitian Children Foundation. After leaving the airport she went to the Community Book Center in New Orleans where tears flowed as she walked through the door. At that site, donations collected by Poux's foundation were being boxed up and Poux was more than excited. "Everything here are needed because I have babies right now that I visited in camps were born maybe three months, four months and no diapers on the kids, not even a piece of cloth," Poux stated.

"We are so happy that Marie is here now to give us first hand information of what is critically needed on the ground in Haiti, said Vera Warren Williams of the Hope for Haitian Children Foundation.

If you would like to contribute to the foundation, log on to http://www.hopeforhaitianchildrenfoundation.org