Dr. John Lomax of Soderstrom Skin Institute was working with a colleague in a clinic located in the Dominican Republic.

The two were performing a skin graft on a patient when Lomax began to feel abnormal movements through his operating table.

“I was thinking, ‘Who’s the idiot that keeps bumping my operating table?’” Lomax said.

Suddenly, the oxygen tanks in the room began rocking.

“The ground started rolling like I was on a boat,” he said.

It was beyond his realization that what just occurred was going to be one of the largest earthquake tragedies in the history of the western world.

Lomax was on a mission trip with members of Northwoods Community Church. He arrived in Jimaní — the capital and the second largest city of the Independencia Province in the Dominican Republic — Jan. 8. It was his third trip to the region. Members of the mission group have been working to open an abandoned clinic.

Jimaní is located about 24 miles from Port-au-Prince, Haiti. It was Jan. 12 when a 7.0-magnitude earthquake hit the impoverished country.

Once Lomax and his fellow mission trip members learned of the earthquake, it took no time for them to consider assessing the situation.

The Rev. Steve Schaefer, pastor at Northwoods Community Church, looked at Lomax and asked, “What do you think?”

Lomax said there was little hesitation in his decision. He and the rest of the group wanted to help.

“We went to the hospital to size things up and see if we could help,” Lomax said.

Fortunately, Lomax said, he and the accompanying doctors had their medical licenses in hand.

“They gave us two operating rooms,” Lomax said. “For about an hour-and-a-half, nothing happened. I got kind of antsy sitting around doing nothing.”

He described the scene.

A 12-year-old girl was screaming in another room as doctors operated on her leg — no anesthesia.

“It was a horrific scream,” said Lomax’s wife, Debbie, who accompanied him on the trip.

Then, more patients began filtering in, some carried by rusty rod-iron fences.

“One man’s arm was swelling so much that his skin was acting as a tourniquet,” Lomax said.

The number of patients needing help was overwhelming. And, to add to the madness, members of the Dominican Republic presidential guard scoured the operating rooms, constantly impeding treatment efforts, Lomax said.

“I said, ‘I’m not here to play games, I’m here to take care of people.’”

There is a conflict between the Dominican Republic and Haiti, largely based on natural resources.

“(The Dominicans) didn’t (want) to fly Haitians in for treatment because they feared they would stay.”

Aside from diplomatic conflicts, treatment supplies were running low.

“The hospital starting running out of stuff,” he said. “We were just burning our supplies right and left.”

By the end of the first day after the earthquake, the hospital and the accompanying doctors had treated 1,000 patients.

The days following were surprising to Lomax. He observed suffering patients lying in beds, some accompanied by friends or family. But, some of them were smiling. Many of the patients were extremely grateful, he said.

Debbie comfortedone patient by singing hymns in English. Lomax described how they recognized the songs and began singing them in Creole, Haiti’s native dialect.

“Haitians were just grateful not to be dead,” he said. “Their entire world has been devastated, and they’re thanking us.”

Even then, Lomax said, he felt guilty.

“The biggest thing is you feel really guilty because you couldn’t do more,” he said. “You feel great about being there, being able to help. But, you want to do more.”

Lomax is back in the states, but he wants more doctors to join in aiding those devastated in Haiti.