Treatment delay leaves no choice but amputations

FOR two days, Ticia Vital refused doctors’ pleas to allow them to amputate her festering left leg, even as the gangrene spread and the alternative became death.

But after a sleepless night filled with pain, the 19-year-old agreed – becoming one of scores of Haitians to lose their limbs to the magnitude-7 earthquake.

In a country where life was already difficult, a future without an arm or leg is especially dismaying.