The school collapsed on Nov. 7, 2008 — Marie-Claude Élie’s last day in Haiti. The Red Cross nurse from Laval, Que., had just finished a month-long stint in Port-au-Prince. She was relaxing at her Port-au-Prince hotel, listening to Luc Merville on her ear pods beside the rooftop pool, when she saw the plume of dust rise from the fallen school. She checked her watch. It was 9:30 a.m. on a Friday and Élie knew the school would be full of students.

Élie quickly changed out of her pool clothes and into her Red Cross t-shirt, pulled on her rubber boots and called the Red Cross headquarters for a ride to the disaster site. “I wanted to do something,” she said. “I cannot stay at the hotel resting when there’s something like that going on.”

On their way from the hotel to the school, Élie and two colleagues stopped to load their truck with bottled water to distribute to the victims and rescuers. But their route to the disaster site itself was blocked by the crowds of Haitians who’d filled the streets. “People were panicking,” Élie said. “There were people running all over the place. Screaming ‘My kids, my kids.’ It was messy, messy, messy.”

Élie grabbed her medical kit, left the jeep and ran to the school on foot, leaving the water behind.

The school’s second floor had collapsed, crushing students and teachers on the first floor and in the school’s basement. Élie rushed directly to the stairs to the basement. She knew rescuing survivors from the lowest level should take priority. Élie remembers passing through a room filled with children’s shoes, still neatly lined up in pairs and belonging to the children trapped inside.

Almost immediately, Élie found a 10-year-old girl, her legs crushed beneath two heavy steel girders. “She was screaming,” Élie said. “It was painful, for sure. I didn’t want her to go into shock.” Élie couldn’t tell if the girl had severed an artery in her leg, but she connected an IV to her bag just in case. “She was so courageous,” Élie said. “She was helping me and holding the IV. When a crew of Brazilian rescuers came in to try and free the girl from the rubble, Élie left her so she could help others. “She didn’t want me to go. She said ‘Please stay.’ I told her ‘I have to go. Someone’s going to take care of you.’”

Deeper into the basement, Élie came upon a horrific scene of three young boys wedged beneath the fallen roof and on top of the body of one of their classmates. The boys were trapped in such a way that, in order to rescue the three living boys, the body of the fourth would have to be dismembered. As Brazilian rescuers debated this grisly task, Élie could hear rescuers clearing rubble on the floor above. She feared their efforts, while well-meaning, would cause further collapse. Élie rushed up the stairs and begged the workers not to further disturb the debris until any survivors below could be rescued.

Élie then helped rig up a pipe system to deliver water to the trapped boys. She would never learn if they were successfully rescued or if they perished alongside their classmate.