Dr. Michael Patterson spent seven months as a Navy battalion surgeon in Iraq in 2005. But the Santa Fe pediatrician said he witnessed more daily death in two weeks as a medical volunteer in earthquake-stricken Haiti.

"If we had a chance to do it again, we would," Patterson said. "But it wears on you seeing people die every single day. People aren't used to that in this country. Even in Iraq I didn't see that."

Patterson and his wife, Susan Griggs, a nurse, recently returned from two weeks in the island nation, which was devastated by a 7.0-magnitude earthquake in January.

They and their Christus St. Vincent Medical Center colleague Veronica O'Halloran, a labor and delivery nurse, are among a growing number of local residents who have traveled to Haiti to help — and have come back with a changed perspective on their own lives.

"I feel different," said Kate Wolfe, a surgical nurse who recently returned from a week working in a makeshift clinic in Port-au-Prince. "I'm aware more of what a good life we have here and how bad things are other places. But I'm also aware that it's possible to be joyful and hopeful when you don't have anything. And that you don't have to have an iPod or a cell phone or all this stuff we think we have to have."

Many of the Santa Feans who have traveled to Haiti have been medical professionals. They've traveled with various aid organizations, but describe similar scenarios of trying to provide medical care to hundreds of people daily in sub-par conditions.

O'Halloran slept on the floor of a hotel ballroom with 30 other people. Her days were "early, long and hot."

Wolfe slept on a cot in a dormitory on missionary compound. During the day, she sometimes saw more than 100 people for infections, worms, wounds and dehydration.

"People were standing in line to see us," Wolfe said.

In the evenings, she said, she and her fellow volunteers shared a meal prepared by a Haitian woman who had lost everything in the quake, and they processed their feelings about things they had seen throughout the day.

Wolfe said one day she saw men digging in the rubble of an apartment building across the street. As a crowed gathered, she said, they pulled half a body out of the debris, and a little girl in the crowd recognized a scrap of the dress that covered the body as her mother's.

Patterson said he saw young people die every day from preventable conditions such as malnutrition or lack of clean drinking water.

"Women would die after childbirth because they were so anemic their hearts would fail," Patterson said. Children died from typhoid-related infections caused by contaminated drinking water.

Patterson worked in an emergency room set up in three tents on the grounds of a hospital in Port-au-Prince, where he treated quake-related and nonquake-related ailments, including injuries sustained in car accidents, gunshot wounds and chronic illnesses.

For five days, he helped shuttle critical patients between various foreign-run medical camps.

In an e-mail to loved ones back home, Patterson described manually pumping air into the lungs of a dying child in desperate ride across the city.

"I bagged the child all the way on the bumpy ride through town," he wrote. "Had no idea the route, as there were no windows ... I had to wait at the gate since they wouldn't let the 82nd Airborne medics help me carry the patient in.

"Meanwhile, the patient is going down the tubes. Once inside, I was yelling for assistance and everyone just stood there stating that they knew no English. Well, it was obvious to anyone on the planet what assistance I needed! Well, child finally died, they gave me a body bag and I carried the child back to the ambulance waiting down the road."

Despite the devastating conditions, the volunteers all spoke of the inspiration they got from the Haitian people.

Griggs said the man who served as her interpreter slept under a tarp and ate powdered milk packets for lunch, but arrived at work every day in a clean shirt.

"They are such strong people, it's a lesson for all of us," Patterson said. "We wonder if the earthquake hit Santa Fe, would we be so graceful and composed?"

"Probably not," Griggs said.

"I fell in love with the Haitian people," Wolfe said. "They are in these unbelievable circumstances where they have no services, no reliable food or water, and they are without exception gracious, welcoming, ready with a smile, just really wonderful people."

Contact Phaedra Haywood at 986-3068 or phaywood@sfnewmexican.com.