Robbinsdale nurse heads to beloved Puerto Rico to help after hurricane

When Mary Chismar Sweeney first saw news footage of hurricane damage in Puerto Rico — an island she'd visited many times — her heart ached.

She'd always had a soft spot for the place and the people who had given her so much joy over the years. A former Broadway stage dancer, she used to travel to Puerto Rico — a mecca for dance — and found herself captivated by the warmth and beauty of island life.

But the images on her TV painted a bleak picture of her beloved Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria hit in September: homes blown open with no roofs, flooded, debris-strewn streets, palm trees decapitated of their lush green leaves.

"My heart was getting pulled," said Chismar Sweeney, 63, of Robbinsdale. "I thought, 'I've got to do something.' "

A nurse at United Hospital in St. Paul, she joined a volunteer rescue mission through National Nurses United bound for San Juan, the capital.

In all, there were 50 American nurses traveling — including three other Minnesotans: Mary Flaherty, Linda Jessen-Howard and Vennesa Jones.

For two weeks in October, the nurses worked 12-hour days assisting Puerto Ricans in need.

When they first arrived, they got to work reading people's blood pressure levels and checking their blood sugars.

But their mission changed after they ventured out to see how people were faring in surrounding towns. They encountered people walking through waist-high water. The water was dirty and full of random objects, making it even more hazardous to walk through.

"When I was there, there was a lot of infection and gangrene," Chismar Sweeney recalled. (Gangrene is a serious condition, often caused by an underlying infection or injury.)

As the Category 4 hurricane hung over the entire island, it had caused widespread destruction.

Everywhere Chismar Sweeney and her fellow nurses went, they saw downed power lines, washed out roads and bridges, and people desperate for clean, cold water and food.

Many residents were stuck in homes with black mold growing on the walls. She entered one elderly man's home, where the roof was gone and his mattress was soaked with wet clothes lying on top of it.

"It looked like a war zone," Chismar Sweeney said. "They were not getting their basic needs met — food, shelter, water. We turned into community nurses."

The nurses sprang into action, securing a bus and enlisting the help of some local college students who served as interpreters. Then they stocked the bus full of supplies — bottled water, rice, beans, boxed milk, diapers — and drove all over the island, visiting towns.

They set up makeshift clinics to treat the sick and injured. In each town, they would invite the sick to come seek medical help at the clinic or send one of the medical volunteers to the person's home to administer treatment.

Since returning to Minnesota, Chismar Sweeney is back at work. But her thoughts are never far from Puerto Rico.

The hurricane no longer grabs headlines, but Chismar Sweeney is determined not to let the people's needs fade from public memory.

"I don't want the story to die," she said. "Once you stop telling the story, the people become forgotten.

"Their faces are in front of me every day. I wonder how they're doing."

Allie Shah • 612-673-4488 • @allieshah