On Wednesday, March 4 Riche Zamor and two colleagues from the University of Fondwa were in an automobile, traveling from Fondwa, Haiti to the capitol city of Port au Prince.
Zamor was barely two months into his stint at University President. The former executive director of Boston’s Haitian Multi-Service Center, Dr. Zamor had left that post to assume his new duties in Haiti in late December.
On that day in March, President Zamor and two members of his academic faculty, professors Amenold Pierre and Vital Gerard, were involved in an horrific traffic accident.
“We were driving to Part au Prince and the driver decided to pass a bus,” Zamor recalled in an interview this week. At the same time, a truck coming in the opposite direction also moved into the passing lane, and the two vehicles collided head-on.
“Both legs were broken at the knee,” Zamor said.
The other men were less seriously injured. At first, Zamor was treated at a Physicians Without Borders medical facility in Haiti and the next day he was flown to a Miami Hospital, where he was stabilized.
His famiiy spoke with his personal physician at Beth Israel./Deaconess Hospital and within days he was transported back to Boston, where on March 16 he underwent successful surgery. After treatment for a post-surgical infection on one leg, he was transferred to Boston’s Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital.
“My family and I wanted to thank you all for your support and prayers during this terrible time,” he told friends in a May 4 e-mail. “Thanks to you, I am now on the way to full recovery. I am pleased to inform you that rehabilitation is going well and that I am scheduled to be discharged on May 8th. I am finally going home, two months in the hospital was getting to me.”
For the time ahead, Zamor plans to recuperate at his home in Randolph and will remain on medical leave from his university post.
“My #1 priority is to get well,” he said in the interview. “For 40 years, I have been traveling back and forth to Haiti, and I never expected to be in an automobile accident.”
But he is hopeful about the future, and intends to return to his university work in Haiti.
“I have had good support since I have been here,” he says. As for his medical treatment, he says, “It’s been a great success.”