Grandview doctors help at Haiti hotel

Tea Party’s impact may be strongest for general election
Updated 6 min. ago
Victim of human trafficking speaks to students
Updated 17 min. ago
‘App economy’ job prospects booming
10:05 a.m.
Bullying law brings rule changes
10:04 a.m.
GE to hire 5,000 veterans, add 400 new manufacturing jobs
9:37 a.m.
> More headlines

Joel Battistoni of Stevenson, Ore., comforts Boyce Fish, of Dayton after the team moved 6 corpses into the morgue they were asked to help establish at the Hotel Montana in Haiti.

Contributed photo by Bruce Ely/The Oregonian Joel Battistoni of Stevenson, Ore., comforts Boyce Fish, of Dayton after the team moved 6 corpses into the morgue they were asked to help establish at the Hotel Montana in Haiti.

By Ben Sutherly, Staff Writer Updated 12:36 AM Thursday, January 21, 2010

A Grandview Medical Center cardiologist who has made humanitarian missions his calling has been in Haiti with others from the Dayton region since Sunday at the site of an upscale hotel that collapsed during the earthquake.

Dr. James Laws, 71, told friends he was going to Haiti to help find Walt Ratterman of Washington state. Ratterman, who had been in Haiti working on a humanitarian renewable energy project for SunEnergy Power International, is feared to have been in the Hotel Montana that collapsed during the earthquake on Jan. 12.

Laws knows Ratterman through Knightsbridge International, a group that Laws co-founded in 1995 to provide humanitarian and disaster relief worldwide.

“His (Laws’) initial discussion with people was he was going to go down and find Walt,” said Carole Schlemmer, Laws’ office manager. “He wouldn’t leave him there dead or alive.”

Others Grandview doctors who made the trip are emergency department residents Mark Thornton and Boyce Fish; and internist Charles Hanshaw.

The group arrived in Haiti on Sunday morning by way of a bus from Santo Domingo, the capitol of the Dominican Republic, which shares an island with Haiti.

Upon arriving at the site of the hotel, they were told if they were there to dig out their friend, they could return home, Schlemmer said. But if they were there to help in general, they could stay.

The group has helped out at the site this week by setting up a morgue and decontamination area. They also were building a shower for relief workers.

Members of the group have described the devastated country to Schlemmer as “a hellhole” and the worst conditions they have seen, despite doing extensive humanitarian work in inhospitable areas.

Ratterman, who journeyed with Laws to Afghanistan and Africa and appeared in the 2006 documentary “Beyond the Call” with Laws, has not been found, Schlemmer said, though the search-and-rescue effort continues at the site.

Laws is now on the cusp of returning from Haiti, and expects to be back in Dayton by Sunday, Schlemmer said.

“They’re disheartened that they haven’t found Walt,” Schlemmer said. “They still want to bring him home. They don’t want him to be caught up in a mass grave, if it came to that.”

Share this article