Dr. Rez and Chrissy Lovitt.Photo:Chad McCord; Courtesy Chrissy Lovitt
Chad McCord; Courtesy Chrissy Lovitt
As thedeadly fires ragedon Maui, locals rushed to help each other—and they’ve continued to do whatever they can to help each other survive.
Boat Captain Chrissy Lovitt not only helped work with the coast guard to rescue countless people, but also gave her home to eight people who lost their homes. Meanwhile, Dr. Reza Danesh took his mobile emergency room and has been working round the clock to treat patients and hand out food and supplies.
“It was like a nuclear bomb went off,” Danesh tells PEOPLE.
As of Tuesday, the official death toll hasrisen to 106 people, although officials have said that number could still increase significantly.
On Aug. 8, boat captain Chrissy Lovitt—who poured her life savings into buying a 36-foot catamaran named Whaine Koa, which means “strong woman” in Hawaiian—was watching the weather. As the wind picked up, she and her wife, fellow captain Emma Nelson, grew worried about their boat, so they went to the Lahaina harbor to check on it.
“We saw all hell start to break loose,” Lovitt says.
At first, they just saw smoke, but then the fire arrived.
“Keep in mind it goes ocean, harbor, Lahaina, and then fire. So there’s nowhere for us to go, but we’re still focused on just helping people in the harbor,” she says. “We’re hearing hundreds of explosions happening. It was like a flame thrower. The winds were blowing this fire horizontally.”
Wildfire devastation in Lahaina.U.S. Coast Guard
U.S. Coast Guard
Lovitt jumped onto a 10-foot skiff, and rounded up people on boats in the harbor, urging them to hop on and evacuate.
“They’re saying, “We think we should stay. We should save our boats.” And I said, “You’re going to die if you stay. The fire won’t kill you. The smoke will kill you,"” she says.
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She drove as fast as she could through the thick smoke.
She and another boat captain, Lashawna Garnier, went to try and save another boat. But then a six-foot wall of whitewater came over and killed their motor.
“So we’re waving to the people we just dropped off, waving to them to get their attention. They’re inside, they’re sheltering, and we’re waving to them. Luckily, they popped their heads out,” she recalls. “All I screamed was, “Do not miss!” And I had a line ready to throw to them.”
She adds, “If they had let go or the line pulled out of their hands, we would’ve been sent out to sea, maybe to never be found again.”
A wildfire burns on the island of Maui near an intersection in Lahaina.County Of Maui/ZUMA Press Wire
County Of Maui/ZUMA Press Wire
She wanted to go get her boat, but she couldn’t restart the water-logged engine.
“We just watched our boats burn in the harbor,” she says. “You’re almost numb. It’s not happening. It’s a bad nightmare. You’re just hoping to wake up. That’s what I kept thinking, “Maybe I’ll just wake up.'”
“There was no chance,” she adds. “We were just stuck there helpless. We were monitoring the radio, and we heard the Coast Guard come on and say, “We have a hundred people in the water. Are there anyone on a boat that can help us?”
They sat and talked about the pros and cons.
“There were embers in the air bombing us. There was smoke, but there was still fire, there was still wind, but we made the decision to try to get the motor started to go help people,” she recalls. “We can’t sit here and not help people. Let’s try.”
When they started the motor, they headed along the coast, looking for survivors, which ended up including two young kids.
“It was almost like being in that ride,Pirates of the Caribbean, except there’s no characters. It’s real quiet, and there’s fire everywhere,” Lovitt says.
They searched for people until they ran out of fuel and when the sun came up, they looked for more survivors as they made their way back to land.
Lovitt’s home had no power, but it was still standing, so she gave it to eight other people who had nowhere to go. Then the couple and their three golden retrievers swam out to another boat they borrowed from a friend and went to another island.
AGoFundMehas been created to help Lovitt and her wife rebuild—and keep paying their mortgage so that the displaced people in her home still have a place to live.
“I just want to make sure that they’re kept safe and secure in the time of uncertainty. It’s important for me to make sure that the house doesn’t fail them,” Lovitt says. “That’s just the community. We just look out for each other.”
After the fires,Dr. Reza Daneshloaded his mobile emergency room truck and went to help survivors.
“The first day, we went to ground zero not knowing what was going to happen and just thought it was just going to be a bunch of people with maybe some injuries or smoke inhalation, maybe some burns," he tells PEOPLE.
“It looked like everything was gone,” he says. “There were bodies and there were some people that survived. They came out very apocalyptic, asking for help. I gave them water and food. They hadn’t eaten in over a day and a half.”
Since then, he’s been working around the clock treating patients.
“These people have chronic diseases, miss their medication, and after a time it becomes an emergency or an acute issue. It’s concerning,” he says.
A building destroyed in Lahaina.Philip Cheung/The New York Times/Redux
Philip Cheung/The New York Times/Redux
Every day, he has taken his mobile medical unit to that side of the island. “The roads are blocked, I get through because I have a medical van. I get through to help,” he says. “It’s my passion. It’s what I’ve signed up to do as a doctor, and that’s my calling.”
Locals, he says, are finding ways to help despite blocked roads. “They’re getting on boats and shipping food and product around the island on a boat. We have to kind of break into the zone that they’ve blocked off. It’s ridiculous,” he says. “All we want to do is help and there’s pilots telling me, “Doc, I’ll fly my little plane over, load me up."”
It’s a special community. “We help each other,” he says. “We’ve come together.”
AGoFundMehas been established to donate to his non-profit and people can alsodonate to his medical disaster relief through his website.
The aftermath of wildfires in Lahaina.PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty
PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty
In addition to providing medical care, he’s also handing out food and supplies.
“It’s just basic humanitarian work that I’m doing here, and I’m here to do it until the end,” he says. “I live here. I’ve called Maui home for 12 years. I don’t plan to go anywhere else.”
source: people.com
