‘I see they need to get out’
CMU student raising money for third plane to Puerto Rico
Rosana Guernica woke up Saturday morning in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., able to count on one hand the number of hours of sleep she’d gotten in the previous three days. That day, the Carnegie Mellon University junior would load 2,000 pounds of supplies into a plane that she’d raised the money to charter, fly to San Juan, and return with 22 Puerto Rican medical patients, some so weak that they had to be carried on and off the plane.
Ms. Guernica, 22, has received national and international attention for her efforts to do something to help her native Puerto Rico. As of Monday evening, she has raised $88,000 through her crowdfunding site and has chartered two planes, bringing 3,000 pounds of supplies and getting nearly 30 patients off the island.
She has now set her sights on a third plane, with the size and timeline dictating by funding. She estimates that she’d need to raise a total of at least $100,000.
She would love for the Puerto Rican infrastructure to recover in the next 10 days or so to the point where sick people no longer need to be evacuated. But she’s not optimistic.
“I’m hoping it won’t be necessary, but I see the medical documents,” she said. “I see they need to get out.”
Ms. Guernica grew up in Puerto Rico. She was moved by stories of people in need of medical care that she was hearing
from friends and family members, and two weeks ago, launched a crowdfunding campaign to charter a plane to get sick patients off the island. She sent hundreds of emails asking for help and — though raising $19,000 for the first plane seemed improbable to everyone but her — the donations rolled in.
“From what I understand, a lot of people were looking for a way to help and didn’t really know how,” she said.
Carnegie Mellon also helped, sharing her campaign with alumni lists and providing support. Ann English, Heinz College associate dean for finance and operations, drove down to Fort Lauderdale with her.
As Ms. Guernica flew back on the first plane and heard stories from the patients, she realized that the need was so great she would try to raise money for a second plane. And now, a third.
“My phone never stops,” she said. “I get photos of sick people all the time.”
The 2,000 pounds of supplies on the second plane Saturday included 170 pounds of medicine donated by Allegheny Health Network, such as the steroid prednisone, the antibiotic Rocephin and the lung medication albuterol. She brought a friend’s father, who is a doctor, 300 D-cell batteries so that he could operate equipment to reopen his practice.
She also brought baby clothes, diapers and wipes for the oncology ward of the University Pediatric Hospital of San Juan, and more general supplies such as canned food and water.
A third of the supplies were delivered directly to the chief of staff to Carmen Yulin Cruz, the mayor of San Juan and a Carnegie Mellon Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy alumna.
Ms. Guernica also brought 30 teddy bears wearing red CMU T-shirts, and had placed one on each seat as a cute gesture to welcome the evacuees.
On the plane ride back, she was surprised to see several of the patients, firmly in middle age, fall asleep on the short flight clutching the bears. “They were so stressed,” she said. “They were so scared.”
The patients ranged in age and medical needs: a man with dwarfism who needed a scheduled joint surgery, a cancer patient who couldn’t get a PET scan in Puerto Rico, a woman with dementia who had trouble remembering rules for survival in Puerto Rico, such as not drinking the water.
Yasdet Maldonado, a cardiac anesthesiologist at AHN and a Puerto Rican native, accompanied Ms. Guernica on the flight to provide medical care, such as for one patient who fainted twice.
“At the age of 22, what she’s doing is absolutely amazing,” said Dr. Maldonado of the effort.
“A lot of people probably thought that type of mission was out of scope, but sometimes you need to go big to get things done.”
Ms. Guernica evacuated only patients with families in the United States who could pick them up in Fort Lauderdale.
“They were so happy,” she said of the families as they were reunited in Florida. “They were all crying. We were all crying.”
Anya Sostek: asostek@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1308.