Retired nurse, 73, prepares for Haiti

HUDSONVILLE, Mich. (WOOD) - After traveling to 27 countries on six continents -- often in response to natural disasters -- Barbara Collver decided to retire.

Then, came the TV images of injured and orphaned children after the earthquake in Haiti.

Now, the 73-year-old Hudsonville woman, a registered nurse, plans to join a team of doctors on a mission trip to treat earthquake survivors. She plans to leave Monday for the nearly two-week trip.

"It was so devastating -- so many lives lost -- and yeah, it just made me want to be there and help, especially when I saw the hospitals that were under tents, and they were doing surgeries without anesthesia," Collver told 24 Hour News 8.

The former nurse at Blodgett Memorial Medical Center and Mary Free Bed Hospital in Grand Rapids, started traveling the world on medical mission trips in 1989, after the last of her three children left the house.

Five of her 42 trips were for natural disasters, including hurricanes in the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua and the 2004 tsunami that killed 40,000 people in Sri Lanka.

"When I see that kind of thing, I just want to help," she said.

Collver has worked side by side with doctors, assessing and treating injuries in countries most people only read about.

She retired in 2004 at the age of 68 -- at least, she thought she did.

"I told God that if he wanted me to go on another trip, I was very willing," she said.

After the earthquake, she hooked up with a church group, but that trip kept getting put off.

"I said, OK, God, if you want me to go, if you'll supply the funds and open the door, I'll go."

She e-mailed a doctor she once worked with on disaster teams -- Dr. Paul Williams, the founder of International Healthcare Network. Collver joined his team and headed to Haiti on Feb. 1 for nearly two weeks.

Now, she and her children are trying to raise money for the trip -- $2,500 -- and gather medical supplies through Facebook and her church, First Assembly of God on 44th Street.

Collver said she has no fears.

"My heart's right with God, with the Lord, and I've always told my family, 'If I ever lose my life when I'm traveling, know that I lost it doing something I love,' " she said.