HAITIAN WOMAN HAS SURGERY IN RIDGEWOOD TO REPAIR FACIAL INJURIES FROM 2010 QUAKE
Paola Cesar went into surgery Thursday afternoon at Valley Hospital in Ridgewood with crushed bones in her face, no sense of smell and double vision from a disfigured eye.
Paola Cezar (center) walks down a Valley Hospital hallway between Dr. Joel Kopelman and Bob Klingin. Klingin, along with his wife Charlene are acting as Cezar’s host family while she is in the United States. The doctor performed the first surgery later Thursday.
KEVIN R. WEXLER/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Paola Cezar (center) walks down a Valley Hospital hallway between Dr. Joel Kopelman and Bob Klingin. Klingin, along with his wife Charlene are acting as Cezar’s host family while she is in the United States. The doctor performed the first surgery later Thursday.
The 2010 earthquake that ravaged Haiti slammed a concrete slab against her face and buried her in the rubble of her Port-au-Prince home for nine hours. After being pulled from the wreckage, she learned she lost 11 of her loved ones, including her fiancé.
Dr. Joel Kopelman, an ophthalmic plastic surgeon, performed the four-hour operation that he said would restore her eye socket. His plan was to insert about 20 microscopic implants that will then allow her eye to move back to its original position from her sinus region, where it’s been buried for the past year.
“This is a staged operation — she’ll probably need two more surgeries after this,” Kopelman said. “But when I saw her in Haiti, I thought I could help her if she could get to the United States.”
Cesar’s appearance and vision should improve dramatically after the operations. But her olfactory nerve has been irreparably damaged and her sense of smell will never return, Kopelman said.
Kopelman, from Englewood, traveled to Haiti in August to try and help the thousands of Haitians still waiting daily outside hospital gates for medical care. He saw Cesar after an expedited operation aboard an American medical ship that had been sent to assist local doctors.
“I’m sure they did what they could — they probably only had a few minutes to do the surgery before they had to get to the next patient,” Kopelman said. “But what they did isn’t really helping her.”
A member of a local dance troupe in her native country, Cesar, 27, speaks limited English but made it clear she’s not able to give any details about the January day when she lost everyone and everything. Tears quickly formed and rolled down her cheek when was asked about the quake. She slowly turned her head to avert further questions.
“I can’t talk about it,” she muttered.
For the last 18 months, she has been living in a tent that is “two bus rides away from my house” with four people and everything she owns. When she learned she was coming to the United States, she stuffed every one of her possessions into a single suitcase.
