{"id":80458,"date":"2020-01-16T09:41:24","date_gmt":"2020-01-16T14:41:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/?p=80458"},"modified":"2020-02-20T09:04:58","modified_gmt":"2020-02-20T14:04:58","slug":"caribbean-karma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/2020\/01\/16\/caribbean-karma\/","title":{"rendered":"Caribbean karma"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Annette Huelskamp fulfilled a lifelong dream of working as a nurse after she graduated from the nursing program at Wright State Lake Campus. (Photos by Erin Pence)<\/p><\/div>\n

She traces her desire to become a nurse back to growing up in her native Haiti, where, as a 10-year-old girl, she came to the aid of a bleeding man.<\/p>\n

The barefoot man had been wading through a river near Annette Huelskamp\u2019s home and cut his foot. The young girl raced over to the stricken man, tore off a piece of her skirt and tied the fabric over the wound to stop the hemorrhaging.<\/p>\n

The grateful man blessed Huelskamp and may have put an angel on her shoulder. A few years later, she narrowly escaped death in a devastating earthquake that shook the Caribbean island nation.<\/p>\n

Today, the Wright State University Lake Campus<\/a> alumna has a nursing degree in her pocket, works in the cardiac unit of a local hospital and aspires to be a traveling nurse to aid the victims of disasters. She\u2019s also an accomplished singer and a bit of a sensation in Haiti.<\/p>\n

Huelskamp grew up several hours north of Port-au-Prince, the capital city of Haiti, a historically poor and politically unstable nation. Her father raised crops for the family and her mother sold clothing and other goods.<\/p>\n

After graduating from high school in 2008, Huelskamp wanted to pursue medicine or nursing but her parents couldn\u2019t afford to send her to school even though they realized and emphasized the importance of education to their children. So Huelskamp moved to Port-au-Prince to study to become a travel agent.<\/p>\n

On Jan. 12, 2010, the catastrophic earthquake struck Haiti, killing more than 100,000 people and destroying or damaging nearly 300,000 homes and buildings. Huelskamp was walking down the street in Port-au-Prince when she heard a loud noise, thinking it might be an airplane crashing. Then the ground began to shake, causing her to veer off of her path.<\/p>\n

\u201cA big building right there then collapsed,\u201d she said. \u201cIf I would have still been walking the way I was I would be dead. It was terrifying.\u201d<\/p>\n

The streets were littered with the dead, leaving Huelskamp with emotional scars.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt like a zombie,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

In October of that year, Huelskamp married her husband, an American missionary whom she had met years earlier in Haiti. The couple settled in the western Ohio village of Maria Stein.<\/p>\n

Huelskamp still wanted to be a nurse.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat dream was silent, but it wasn\u2019t dead,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

So she enrolled at Wright State\u2019s Lake Campus and began taking general classes. After the bachelor\u2019s degree nursing program<\/a> was launched in 2014 at Lake Campus, she jumped in.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was not easy. It is a lot of studying. You have to be devoted,\u201d said Huelskamp, who was also helping raise her two young children. \u201cBut here at Wright State we have the best instructors. The professors were ready to help us out. We have the best program.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Annette Huelskamp works in a cardiac unit at a hospital in Troy and eventually wants to become a traveling nurse to help the victims of disasters and other emergencies.<\/p><\/div>\n

Huelskamp found herself being embraced by the campus community. She played on the basketball team and sang in the glee club.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me as a foreigner, I came here and had an accent, but that didn\u2019t bother anybody. So I fit right in,\u201d she said. \u201cI am very proud to call myself a Laker. It is like home.\u201d<\/p>\n

After graduating with her bachelor\u2019s degree in nursing<\/a> last May, she landed a job at the Upper Valley Medical Center in Troy. She works in the Cardiac Telemetric Unit, caring for patients with cardiac-related problems.<\/p>\n

Huelskamp speaks four languages \u2014 English, Spanish, French and Creole. She taught herself English by listening to music, repeating the lyrics of songs. She even sang songs in English for American tourists in Haiti.<\/p>\n

Huelskamp recently began writing her own songs and last year released her first song on YouTube<\/a>. Recorded under the name Shega, the song is titled \u201cCheri M\u2019 damou.\u201d It is about a woman who defies convention to pursue the man she loves.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a woman saying to a guy, \u2018Hey, I\u2019m in love with you and scared to tell you about it because I don\u2019t want you to break my heart \u2014 but I\u2019m going to take the chance,\u2019\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

During finals week last spring, Huelskamp wrote songs as a way to take a break from studying. She is working on an album that will be produced by Nickenson Prudhomme at a recording studio in Florida.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m known at home in Haiti. People know my song,\u201d she said. \u201cThey call me for interviews a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Singing aside, Huelskamp\u2019s long-term goal is to earn her master\u2019s degree in nursing and become a traveling nurse, aiding the victims of disasters and other emergencies.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince I can speak four different languages I want to travel all over the world to help people out,\u201d she said. \u201cLet\u2019s say something happens in Guatemala; I can speak Spanish.\u201d<\/p>\n

She also plans to offer her nursing services to fellow Haitians when she returns to visit.<\/p>\n

Huelskamp realizes she is currently living the dream.<\/p>\n

\u201cA girl like me came from a poor country, with English not being my first language,\u201d she said. \u201cThis is paradise on Earth compared to my home in Haiti, but then to get a nursing degree. Wright State, the Lake Campus \u2014 this is the best I could ask for.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Annette Huelskamp fulfilled a lifelong dream of working as a nurse after she graduated from the nursing program at Wright State Lake Campus. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":80474,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[722,733,4309,4299,2017,725,2046,731,715],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academics","category-alumni","category-alumni-association","category-alumni-profile","category-nursing-health","category-home-news-sidebar","category-international-students","category-lake-campus","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80458"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80458\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80498,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80458\/revisions\/80498"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}