“Give us your passports!” I watched in horror as my companions handed their documents through slatted jeep windows to the surrounding mob. Clutching my passport tighter, I looked around helplessly. One week earlier, I had landed uncertainly on a plane filled with confident journalists and relief workers. Outside the airport, I was whisked away in an ambulance, sirens blaring as it bounced over sidewalks that lined tension-filled streets. My host explained casually on the ride to the hospital—as if describing a possible flash mob—that taking the ambulance was the only way to protect us if rioting broke out. In December 2010, shortly after graduating as a young physical therapist, and less than a year after an earthquake devastated Haiti, I landed in the aftermath. I had eagerly signed on to volunteer for six months at a hospital in Port-au-Prince, with no idea of the rising unrest surrounding a rigged election. I had barely tied a mosquito net over the hospital bed in my quarters when rumors reached us of possible rioting. Volunteers were immediately sequestered in the hospital compound. I gazed across the lush surrounding hills from the rooftop and longed to explore the tumultuous country. I shared the top floor of our two-story sanctuary with multiple international volunteers. Aid workers were still pouring into the country to assist with continued recovery efforts following the 7.0 magnitude earthquake that left a death toll of around 160,000 people in its wake. Everything felt surreal as I struggled to find reliable interpreters to help me teach earthquake victims to walk. It was announced one evening that elections had not gone well and there was a real threat of city-wide violence. Administrators began making hasty preparations to evacuate us in small teams. I was scheduled to leave on the first transport out. The next morning, I was escorted into a jeep with three other volunteers, beginning our dash from Por-au-Prince to the Dominican Republic. Clicking my camera through the barred windows of our jeep, I captured a true account of the Haitian chaos as we sped past tent cities, heaps of garbage, and United Nations troops. I glimpsed an opulent BMW dealership amidst rambling filth and poverty, depicting the extreme disparity between classes. In one of the most impoverished neighborhoods, a young woman walked to church wearing a pristine white dress, like a butterfly rising from the mire. The engine slowed at the compound of an international relief agency. There we joined another jeep of evacuees for the added security of their police escort. Waiting for them to load up, we wandered the manicured compound—an odd oasis amid a chaotic city. Back on the road and fortified with police protection, I continued my rapt observations. As civilization dwindled and then disappeared, we navigated a dirt road between a tranquil lake and rugged hillside. Everyone began to relax, but the calm soon gave way to fear. Our jeep came to an abrupt stop just short of the Dominican border. Suddenly shouting men surrounded our vehicle. They reached between the bars, forcefully asking for our passports. Already a seasoned traveler at twenty-six, I held tight to my document, but my friends were more obliging. Realizing their mistake too late, they watched helplessly as the men began to slip into the crowd. Out of nowhere, one of our Haitian police escorts stood blocking their way, towering a foot above the tallest man. His blue helmet shaded a rigid expression that completed his crisp uniform. No one escaped. Within seconds, he was pressing the passports back through our window slats. Voice firm, he said in a deep French-Creole accent, “Give your passports to no one.” My fellow evacuees nodded gratefully and clutched their only lifelines out of a troubled country. Promptly back in his jeep, he stuck one arm out, waving us through the border gates to refuge. I never learned the name of our Haitian hero. It was not until a few months later, when a hospital volunteer was kidnapped and held hostage, that I recognized the impact of his intervention. I then understood that just one courageous character can create the difference between catastrophe—and a calm conclusion.