From quake volunteer to Haiti's leading emergency medevac operator

Stacy Librandi now runs Haiti’s largest emergency medical ambulance and medevac service, 16 years after arriving as a volunteer new to disaster relief after the magnitude 7.0 earthquake that struck Haiti on Jan. 12, 2010. She was flown to the Port-au-Prince airfield in the aftermath and found a crowd of about 1,000 people living in tents and improvised shelters, a scene that looked like its own city.

What started as a volunteer response has become HERO, identified in social media as Haitian Emergency Response Operations and based in Port-au-Prince. HERO Client Rescue says it offers 24/7 emergency ambulance and medevac flight rescue in Haiti and is focused on “bridging critical medical & emergency infrastructure gaps in Haiti.” In a country where public safety systems have repeatedly been strained, that makes the organization a practical substitute for the emergency number residents should be able to rely on.

The mechanics matter. HERO’s model combines ambulance dispatch, helicopter evacuation and medevac flights, moving patients from roadsides and clinics to places where care can happen faster. That network is paired with related flight, medical, logistical and secure transport services, which a Facebook post from Librandi said help fund charity work in Haiti. “Thank you everyone who chooses HERO and HALO for your flight, medical, logistical and secure transport services,” she wrote.

Librandi has also described the service as something built long before it had the resources it has now. “Way back before we had our first ambulance (and before I got my first wrinkles) I had a team of amazing guys who believed in the same thing as me,” she wrote. That early trust still underpins the operation’s ability to move quickly, because in Haiti’s emergency landscape, the difference between a call being answered and a patient waiting can be life or death.