The Commercial Appeal’s reporter Tom Charlier and photographer Alan Spearman are in Haiti are traveling with Le Bonheur Children’s Medical Center’s team that has been sent there to help with medical assistance after last month’s devastating earthquake left tens of thousands dead and a country in ruins.

It’s taken more than three weeks for the 31-year-old Methelus to make it to Sacred Heart Hospital for proper medical care. But now, she and her family are about to get bad news from a Memphis surgeon: The leg is dangerously infected and must come off.

“The problem is, the infection could spread and make her very sick. I don’t want to do any amputations,” Dr. Derek Kelly, of Le Bonheur Children’s Medical Center, says as Methelus’ mother, Pierre DeLasiene, 50, closes her eyes and holds out her hands as if to wish it all away.

The reason for the family’s distress is all too apparent. Life here in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation is hard enough for even the most able-bodied person. To become an amputee in Haiti, Kelly says later, “is right next to dying.”

Kelly, a Campbell Clinic pediatric orthopedic surgeon at Le Bonheur, is part of a surgical team from the Memphis hospital that has spent nearly two weeks providing care for victims of the magnitude-7.0 quake, which killed an estimated 200,000 Haitians and left hundreds of thousands of others injured or homeless.

The feature series is compelling and shows what not only the victims of the earthquake have endured, but how doctors from Memphis are attempting to save lives.

You can also follow Alan Spearman’s gripping account of what he is seeing on twitter for updates from Haiti at his twitter account, Hotel Memphis.

Here’s an example of what he’s writing from last night.

“the lion sleeps tonight” whistled by a hatian bounced off the cracked interior walls of the hospital i just transmitted photos from.

An amazing story behind Haiti with connections to Memphis. Spearman’s twitter stream is fantastic and poetic.