Watching television alone on the couch in his Burlington apartment, Zachary Rounds, a student at Saint Michael’s College, was struck by the coverage of Hurricane Ian’s destruction. It reminded him of witnessing the impacts of Tropical Storm Irene in Vermont as a child.
“It sounded like they didn’t have enough medical personnel or really personnel in general. It sounded like they were unclear as to how many people still hadn’t been rescued,” Rounds said.
After several hours of contemplation, Rounds, who is also an emergency medical technician, decided to take a week off from his classes to provide medical care.
He flew to Florida the following morning.
Rounds, 25, originally from Brattleboro, said that although he heard messages from government officials warning against self-deployment, he still felt it was the right thing to do.
“There was a lot of work to be done and I knew that if I self-deployed, regardless of the instructions, I would find someone that would take me under their wing and let me practice medicine,” Rounds said.
Although Rounds is in his second year at Saint Michael’s, studying pre-med and biology, he already has experience providing emergency care. As a senior at Brattleboro Union High School, he volunteered for Rescue Inc., an emergency medical service provider, and then went on to work there.
Rounds is currently a part-time lieutenant at Rescue Inc. while he attends college, but he said that the organization wasn’t a part of his self-deployment to Florida.
He also worked as an EMT from 2016 to 2020 at Brattleboro Memorial Hospital.
Without a plan for housing accommodations, Rounds took a morning flight on Oct. 3 to Florida, where friends in Sarasota drove him to Fort Myers — which he heard was most impacted by the hurricane.
“I was prepared for the worst of the sleeping arrangements,” he said.
Rounds found a point of distribution, which provides food and medical care, where he met members of a non-profit relief organization, Community Organized Relief Effort (CORE) who agreed to let him help provide medical care.
That night, Rounds camped in an abandoned RV in a Walmart parking lot with a sleeping bag he had brought with him. (For the rest of the week, CORE provided housing accommodations and food for him.)
Rounds spent his days going door-to-door to check on individuals and provide medical care.
He said he treated people with hurricane-inflicted wounds, diabetic patients who had no access to blood glucose meters or insulin, those who were dehydrated and needed an IV and those who had chronic illnesses with no ability to get in contact with their doctors.
Rounds said that he provided care in areas of Florida that “really hadn’t seen anybody yet since the storm” — including Fort Myers, Pine Island and Cape Coral. Many places still didn’t have cell service, water, food or power, he noted.
What surprised Rounds was how strong the sense of community remained after the hurricane. While many homes were completely destroyed, he witnessed some residents distributing food to neighbors, smiles on their faces.
“There were other people that were just smiling and so grateful to be alive — yet they had nothing. Their house and everything had been destroyed, but they were still smiling, and they were still offering, like us, a bottle of water,” Rounds said.
One moment that impacted him was when he saw someone go up to a group of children and begin to hand each one a free meal. He watched the interaction while standing outside of a commercial structure trying to charge his phone.
“They didn’t even ask, you know, they were just like keeping each other fed,” Rounds said.
He was also struck by how underserved the areas he was providing medical care were — even before the hurricane hit.
Many of the medical issues he found himself addressing on Pine Island, for instance, predated the disaster. In some cases, he provided care to patients who he said might not have seen a doctor in several years.
“They barely even have enough to support themselves before their house is destroyed,” Rounds said.
Rounds said that many residents cried as they recounted how afraid they were when their manufactured homes, also known as mobile homes, began lifting off the ground as the storm was coming through.
Rounds said he wished he could have helped more people in Florida, but he knew he needed to return to Vermont to continue his studies at Saint Michael’s.
“There’s still work to be done there. So leaving was kind of a hard thing,” Rounds said.
