Perfectly matched medical team heads to Sri Lanka

05:23 PM PST on Wednesday, January 5, 2005

By ERIC WILKINSON / KING 5 News

PUYALLUP, Wash. - A perfectly matched medical team from Puyallup, Wash., is heading to help devastated areas of Sri Lanka.

Sri Lankan native, Dr. Senthil Nadaraja, used to vacation in the very communities now washed out to sea. He fears many friends may be lost as well.

“I really don't know who is alive and who is dead because all I've got is a body count,” he said. “The numbers are coming out, but not the names.”

Nadaraja had to return to his homeland to help, inspiring co-workers at Good Samaritan Hospital to do the same.

KING

Dr. Senthil Nadaraja attends to a patient at the Good Samaritan Hospital in Puyallup.

Among them is ER doc Larry Woodard, a veteran of the World Trade center and Oklahoma City relief efforts. His degree in tropical medicine is making him an invaluable addition to this unique medical team.

“Our hope is to go as far out as we can possibly get,” he said. “We want to be a resource to people who don't have it.”

Also on board is registered nurse David York, who just last year worked with a relief effort in Micronesia on an island devastated by a typhoon.

He hopes to alleviate some of the heartache he knows from the past.

“The outpouring of just care and concern -- it will probably be overwhelming -- just as the disaster part, losing loved ones, is overwhelming,” he said. “Hopefully this will be overwhelming on the other side of things.”

With a doctor fluent in the local language, another an expert in tropical medicine and a nurse experienced in island disaster relief it would be hard to find another group of co-workers better suited for the mission at hand. Some of them have never even worked together until now.

Two other nurses are part of the team. They will be working with the international medical health organizations.