Hiawatha man’s granddaughter injured in Haiti

The granddaughter of a Hiawatha man is now home in Idaho after being injured in the Haiti earthquake.

Don Gabel, 77, said his granddaughter, Rachel Prusynski, 22, was working with disabled orphans on the top floor of a seven-story children's hospital near Port-au-Prince when the earthquake hit.

The building collapsed, and she was buried for an estimated 30 minutes before being rescued, he said.

She was treated for a broken arm and other injuries at the U.S. Embassy before being evacuated to the U.S. Navy hospital on the Guantanamo base in Cuba.

She flew to Florida on Friday and then to Boise, Idaho, where her parents, Mark and Linda Prusynski, live.

Prusynski, he said, is a doctoral student in neurological physical therapy at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Wash. She has volunteered in developing countries for the past four years and was in Haiti during Christmas break, helping her best friend, Molly Hightower, who had been working there since last summer.

Hightower, Prusynski told CNN, was napping two floors below her when the earthquake hit. She learned later that her friend had died.

“She's going to need psychological help,” Gabel said of his granddaughter. “She feels guilty that she's alive and her best friend is dead. She's very religious and kindhearted. I feel so bad for her.”