Anchorage woman leads medical mission to provide aid to earthquake victims in Turkey

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - On Tuesday, Teresa Gray was packing up medical supplies in her South Anchorage home, preparing for a series of flights that would take her to the epicenter of an earthquake on the border of Turkey and Syria that has claimed over 11,000 lives.

“One of the reports that I got is that even the structures that are left standing will spontaneously collapse, even without an aftershock,” Gray said. “So we are not going to be able to stay inside a structure at all. It’s winter time in Turkey and yesterday it was 5 below, but we are going to sleep in tents because it’s not safe to sleep in buildings.”

Gray founded the nonprofit Mobile Medics International to provide medical care to victims of natural disasters and humanitarian crises. The group specializes in sending small mobile teams of four to eight medical volunteers who can get into remote areas and work quickly to help stabilize people after a disaster.

“We do what’s called gap medicine,” Gray said. “We come in as early as we possibly can, we do the critical or the emergent and, you know, make sure people are sort of stabilized as best as we can, and then we are usually out in 10 days to two weeks.”

On Tuesday, Gray was packing everything the team might need in Turkey, including their food and a portable shelter. Everything, including medical supplies, she explained, needed to be carried on their backs.

“That’s why we don’t set up stationary clinics, that’s why we travel. So whatever it takes to get to where people are trapped that’s what we’ll do,” Gray said.

Gray said the volunteer team headed to Turkey includes herself, a nurse from Missouri, a doctor from Malaysia and a paramedic from London.

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