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: Can it arrive in time to save thousands of Haitians who've survived the quake so far? NPR's Richard Knox reports on the efforts to get medical equipment and personnel into Haiti.
RICHARD KNOX: Orthopedic surgeon Richard Villar is packing up to fly to Port- au-Prince. When I caught up with him in London, he said he was surrounded by boxes of medical supplies and surgical equipment that will be flown out today.
RICHARD VILLAR: There is amputation equipment available. There's also equipment necessary to clean wounds. That is absolutely critical, because as a surgeon, if you are faced with dead tissue that will not recover, that has to be removed.
KNOX: Villar's the leader of a team from Merlin, a nonprofit medical rescue organization. Seven surgeons from the group plan to set up a surgical field hospital somewhere in Port-au-Prince. They don't know where yet.
VILLAR: In essence, I'm after trying to get people patched up, rescued and limbs preserved as rapidly as I can.
KNOX: The British mobile surgical unit will be among the first to arrive in Haiti. Once it's up and running, it'll be able to do about 60 operations a day. He says earthquakes are different from other disasters. The crush injuries and head trauma they cause require more surgical treatment right away.
VILLAR: The critical part is the part we're in right now. And the earlier we can get help out there, the better.
KNOX: The time window for rescuing those who can be rescued is five or six days. After that, he says...
VILLAR: People who have had life-threatening injuries are struggling, and they may not have made it.
KNOX: In Haiti, one of the leading coordinators of the medical rescue effort if Dr. Jorge Velasco. He agrees time is running out for severely injured earthquake victims. He's head of the Health and Education office at USAID in Haiti.
JORGE VELASCO: Every day that passes, of course, mortality rates will increase.
KNOX: Velasco says he has no idea how many earthquake survivors are in need of urgent medical care.
VELASCO: I would love to make an estimation, because that would help me plan. But it's really anybody's guess at the moment, because of all of the sheer magnitude of the situation.
KNOX: If people with broken bones and crushed muscles need to get surgical treatment within six days, that time window expires this Sunday. I asked Velasco if it's possible that field hospitals would be set up in Port-au-Prince by this weekend.
VELASCO: I won't say that it's unlikely that surgical units will be able to be installed by the weekend. Our hope is that we will be able to get some of these on the ground. Of course, I doubt whether that'll be sufficient.
KNOX: Enough of the injured have found their own way to these remote hospitals to put a strain on them, says Dr Michael Vanrooyen, a medical disaster specialist.
MICHAEL VANROOYEN: They're rapidly becoming overwhelmed with surgical issues. And one of their big needs is surgeons and anesthesiologists and orthopedic surgeons to deal with the big influx.
KNOX: Richard Know, NPR News.
: You'll find photos and the latest news from our team in Haiti on our Web site: npr.org.