SPOKANE -- Relief efforts in Haiti are entering their fourth week and volunteers from the Inland Northwest are just starting to return home for a break with their first-hand accounts of the devastation.

Eddie Wickward say the Hope for Haiti telethon lat week and was so touched he emailed asking if the organization could use a volunteer. He says Hope for Haiti said 'no thanks' which was disheartening news, but he says he said a prayer.

“I said a little prayer, it was simple, if you want me to go, make it happen,” Wickward said.

The prayer was answered almost immediately.

“About two hours later I was packing to go,” Wickward said. He was headed to Port-au-Prince from the comfort of his West Plains home.

In his first days there, Wickward joined his father-in-law, who is a doctor in Walla Walla, and they treated almost 100 patients. He says the heartiness of the Haitian people is something he'll never forget.

Wickward remembers watching as a man fell while digging in the rubble. The man's knee cap split in half.

Driving around town, Wickward says every other building was crumbled with some bodies still buried.

“We drove past a high school where some of the kids got out in time to see the majority of the class get killed, I don't know, how do you take that?” Wickward asked.

There are markets full of food to buy, but free food is still slow to be distributed.

“We drove down a street packed full of food but within three, four blocks there are a couple of young boys that died from starvation within walking distance to that food, but they had no way to buy it,” Wickward said.

Although it seems the whole world is itching to help, progress is slow. Wickward says too many politicians aren't getting enough done.

He is praying those he helped will get relief soon and hopes his prayer is answered just as quickly as the prayer that got him to Haiti.

“You just can't forget, they need our help and they're going to need it for a long time,” Wickward said.

It's estimated that thousands of deaths will be attributed to infection, from something as small as an untreated, infected cut.

The earthquake's death toll is around 200,000 people, according to ABC News.