Editor's note: This is another report in an occasional series on unusual events or people found by The Bee's police reporters and editors.
By Chelsea Phua
cphua@sacbee.com
As a firefighter, you never know what the next emergency call will be.
For Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District's Capt. Barbara "Barbie" Law, the call came on a business trip in Alabama on Jan. 12.
The emergency: A 7.0 magnitude earthquake that just struck Haiti.
Pagers went off for firefighters who serve in urban search and rescue teams to inform them of their deployment. Law was in a room with them and wanted to help.
She sent a text message to Dr. Hernando Garzon, Sacramento County's Emergency Medical Services Medical Director and a member of Relief International, a humanitarian agency that provides emergency aid to victims of natural disasters worldwide.
Garzon welcomed Law, making her the first paramedic to join Garzon's team of doctors and nurses.
Law returned home to prepare for her two-week trip to Haiti. On Jan. 19, she left Sacramento, first stopping in Miami, then the Dominican Republic and finally arriving in Port-au-Prince, Haiti's capital city, in a helicopter.
She works in a clinic in the town of Carrefour, southwest of Port-au-Prince. The clinic sees 150 to 200 patients a day.


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