A Cote des neiges woman helped saved the life of at least one victim of Tuesday's earthquake and she did it with the help of the social networking site Facebook.
Jean-Olivier Neptune who is was stuck under the rubble of a collapsed building in Port-au-Prince. Friends and neighbours desperate to get him help put this message on Facebook : " He's alive but in very bad shape," the message read "please please hurry and get there as sson as you can and please put this info in your statuses, * rue Mont-Joli Turgeau ! URGENT !"
The message got to Montrealer Stacey Delince who got right to work from her apartment in Cote des Neiges. She called news organizations the Haitian emand the Red Cross. By 3 in the afternoon Neptune had been found and pulled from the rubble. He is now in hospital in serious condition.
The experience has prompted Delince and 40 of her freinds to start a web site to try and help find victims amidst the ruins of Port-au-Prince.
Unionhaiti.org went live this morning and already it is bombarded with meassges of people trying to help loved ones.
"These are the coordinates for my family's house. If anyone could check on them it would be greatly appreciated. Richardson, Reynold, Vanessa, Fefe, Toutou, Stephanie, Faguens, Pato, Anna are the people who live there" reads on message.
With phone lines down in Haiti web sites and social networking sites have wuickly Haitizn victims' lifelines. It may be the fist time ever citizens are using successfully the web to help guide rescue workers in the aftermath of a natural disaster.
Comments
excellent coverage, it takes just one person to make a change!
it was too late,he's dead now..
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