Sioux City Doctor Heads to Gaza to Help

CBS-Affiliate KMEG 14's Steve Long (Sioux City, IA) Reports:



A Sioux City doctor is getting ready to fly halfway around the world, to help injured Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Reporter Steve Long met the doctor and explains why he is reaching out to those suffering so far away from our hometowns.

He leaves Sioux City on Wednesday morning before sunrise with stops in Minneapolis and New York before arriving in Cairo, Egypt on Thursday. The big question: Why is a doctor from Sioux City going all the way to Gaza?

There is a fragile ceasefire now in place between Israel and Hamas militants in Gaza, but in the process of the fighting, over a thousand Palestinians died and several thousand more were injured.

"There's a crisis there and they need help. I'm trained to give that kind of help," Dr. Rick Colwell says.

Dr. Rick Colwell is an emergency room physician at St. Luke's and one of nine U.S. doctors and four from Canada leaving on a 10-day mission to Gaza, providing relief to doctors there overwhelmed with recent need.

"This is through the Islamic Medical Association of North America and I have actually done relief work with them before. In 2005, the earthquake in Pakistan, through this organization I went over there and worked in the Himalayan Mountains," says Dr. Colwell.

His wife Eena is originally from Pakistan. They met about a decade ago in Des Moines and Dr. Colwell is himself now a Muslim. Their seven-month-old daughter's name is Emaan, which he says means faith. And faith plays into Dr. Colwell's trip to Gaza.

"You try to do things that you think God would want you to do. It's to please God first and second would be to help the people that are there, that need so much help," says Dr. Colwell.

Help that is now on the way.

They don't know exactly what to expect when they get there, they may not even be let into Gaza. But if they're not, they have arrangements to help wounded Palestinians from Gaza at a hospital in Egypt.

This story also appeared on KPTH Fox 44 (Sioux City, IA).