Nepal earthquake: Windsor nurse heading to Nepal to help

A Windsor disaster relief nurse is heading to Nepal Saturday morning to help those who have been injured in the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that struck the country a week ago and killed at least 6,260 people.

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Carolyn Davies and 14 others with the Canadian Medical Assistance Team will provide medical assistance in Nepal for three weeks.

"Our team basically addresses the injured and the illness that has occurred post the disaster," Davies said. "In earthquakes, we're often dealing with fractures, crushes, torn tissue, a lot of wound care."

Davies said the team will start off in capital Kathmandu and then decide if they will set up somewhere else from there.

Canada's Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) has already been there since the earthquake hit and have been assessing which areas are in most need of medical help, said Davies.

"We'll place our team where it's most needed, not just where everybody else is. We could see anything and everything, and we're prepared to do that," she said.

Davies, who has been to other disaster zones, includingHaiti after the country experienced a 7.0 magnitude earthquake in 2010, said she'll be using what she learned from those experiences in Nepal.

"Our group is very, very experienced going in, and we [work] very closely with the United Nations," she said. "We made sure [in Haiti] that we were not only seeing the most critical people who had risk of dying quite quickly.

"You also want to try to keep a confidence in the people that you're taking care of," Davies said. "Just because you're not as injured you're not going to wait six hours [for help]."

Davies said she part of the Canadian Medical Assistance Team's first group of disaster relief workers to head to Nepal. Other teams will follow.

"Those families are just families like yours and mine," she said of the victims. "They just want to make sure their children are safe, that they're safe; there's real problems with housing, so we will be bringing tents."

Davies will be leaving her tent in Nepal at the end of her stay, so someone can use it to house themselves in.