Redding nurse heads to D.C. for disaster relief award
- By Joe Szydlowski | Redding Record-Searchlight
- Posted April 6, 2013 at 9:25 p.m.
Thunderous gunfire accompanied what little starlight peeked through the wooden roof.
He spent his days hiking through military posts manned by soldiers and machine guns up to mountain villages with necessities in the aftermath of an earthquake that killed 75,000 people.
"I thought, 'I could very well die,'" Kropp, 42, said.
Come Tuesday, Kropp, a Redding-based medical consultant, will be leaving for a very different environment: Washington, D.C. There, Kropp will join eight others meeting current and former lawmakers at the Save the Children Advocacy Summit.
In January, Kropp was honored by Bill Clinton at a ceremony in California for his work as a disaster relief worker in Japan, India and Haiti. He had won the inaugural REAL Health Care Heroes Emergency Care award.
"He has taken his experience as an emergency and trauma nurse around the world, visiting various natural disaster sites to help others, most recently after the devastating earthquakes in both Kashmir, India, and again in Haiti," Save the Children's judges said. "He has channeled these accomplishments and passions into creating his own companies, Cosine Health Strategies and CLiCKPLAYceu.com."
The cold January days he spent brewing tea, serving Miso soup, knitting hats and comforting victims in Kobe, Japan after a 1995 earthquake made him want to continue disaster aid.
"I have one of those, I guess, helper personalities, the same thing as firefighters, policemen," he said. "You run into the burning building. There's a life in there and life is precious."
In 2005, a friend raised $10,000 in two days to provide aid in India after a 7.6-magnitude quake devastated the contested region of Kashmir, India.
He and his friends headed to India. When he arrived, he said he found a war zone.
"Bill Clinton even said once, 'It's the most dangerous place in the world,'" Kropp said of Kashmir, over which India and Pakistan have fought skirmishes. He saw gun nests atop hillsides and in cities. Military trucks constantly drove through the streets.
They converted the money to rupees to purchase necessities for those whose homes had been lost, but had to carry it themselves. They hiked the rugged terrain during the day and slept at night in small boats with wooden roofs.
He recalled hearing .50-caliber fire at night.
"That put the fear of God into you," he said.
When he returned to the United States, he said he was reminded of America's fortune.
"The gap between life and death in the U.S. is so wide, but in other countries, especially India, the gap is so narrow," he said.
During the two-day conference, he is looking forward to meeting with senators, including former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, and attending a White House briefing.
Source: http://www.redding.com/news/2013/apr/06/redding-nurse-heads-to-dc-for-disaster-relief/Check out http://groups.yahoo.com/group/californiadisasters/
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