Nery Ynclan, a University of Miami media officer in Haiti, said the patient was in stable condition yesterday and being treated for dehydration and malnutrition. The man identified himself as Evans Monsigrace, 28, she said, adding that his family told doctors varying accounts of his ordeal.
The man has normal kidney function, suggesting he had food and water at least for a week if he was trapped since Jan. 12, Ynclan said.
“Someone could not survive 28 days without water,’’ she said. “You can go nine weeks without food.’’
“He came in delirious, asking to die,’’ Ynclan added, saying Creole translators were at the field hospital. “He’s still out of it. He answers basic questions,’’ she said, adding that he is nibbling on chocolate and probably will be at the field hospital for a week.
A videotape shot by Michael Andrew, an Arizona-based freelance photographer and a volunteer at the Salvation Army medical center, shows doctors on Monday trying without success to insert a needle into the man’s arm to give him fluid. Doctors there then referred the man to the field hospital at the airport, Andrew said.
Andrew said the man was delirious and identified himself through an interpreter as Evans Muncie. The Salvation Army, in a posting on its website, identified him yesterday as Evan Ocinia.
The Salvation Army posting says two men, whom it didn’t identify, found the patient in the debris of a market Monday, 28 days after the quake.
The quake killed 230,000 people, the Haitian government said yesterday. The last confirmed survivor was a 16-year-old girl discovered in rubble 15 days after the quake.
