A few weeks after an earthquake killed 9,000 people in Nepal, Michelle Ufner of Butler traveled to that country to offer her help.

Ufner, 62, went to the Asian country as a part of Team Rubicon, which is a disaster relief organization led by veterans. Nepal in the Himalayan Mountains was devastated by a 7.9 earthquake on April 25.

She left for Nepal on May 6 and returned May 24.

Half of the team went to the mountains to work and half stayed behind for a few days. Ufner was part of the group that stayed behind, and she assisted with logistics, finances and medical equipment.

A few days later, she went out on a medical relief team. However, she said the team did whatever needed to be done.

“We were helping with debris removal,” Ufner said.

She said some villages were flattened by the earthquake.

She spent much of her time in a mountain village called Sermathang.

“We were helping them rebuild their community centers and their school,” Ufner said.

The team also gave out tarps and corrugated metal sheets to help build temporary structures.

The team only rebuilt one house. That was because its members did not want to pick favorites when it came to houses, she said.

“In this situation, this woman had no family,” Ufner said.

The team built her a temporary house using stones from the original home.

Ufner also helped clear out a school.

“That was pretty well devastated,” Ufner said.

She was sent in as an EMT, but the team saw that the medical need was declining, so she began doing other tasks. Eventually, she began doing mental health work.

Ufner helped teach a trauma class, and did one-on-one interventions with children.

While she was there, a woman put together a three-day trauma class for children that Ufner was involved with. That woman noted that some of the parents were drinking more alcohol and there was more stress following the earthquake.

Five minutes into one of Ufner’s class presentations, an aftershock hit. The building had to be evacuated.

“The kids were scared to death,” Ufner said.

She experienced another quake on the way up a mountain to a village.

“You just saw the houses crumble,” Ufner said.

While in Nepal, Ufner stayed in one-person tents. The team had no access to bathrooms or showers. Members dug holes in the ground to use as toilets and surrounded them with tarps for privacy.

To keep, clean, they used body wipes.

Villagers prepared food for team members. The village had a community tent where the villagers who lost their homes stayed, and the food was served there.

“By the time we left, there were less and less people staying in the tent,” Ufner said.

She said it would have been great to simply go and help the people, but she said it was a real pleasure to become involved in the lives of the villagers.

“What made the bond was getting to know them,” Ufner said. “It’s the people.”

She recalled a little girl who she enjoyed playing with. When Ufner left, the girl gave her a flower. The woman who cooked for the team gave Ufner a hat, and Ufner noted that this woman had little to give away.

“It’s the little things,” Ufner said of that gesture.

Ufner formerly was a civilian employee of the U.S Army, working as a social scientist in Afghanistan.

This was her third larger mission with Team Rubicon. Before this, she went to Virginia to help find a missing University of Virginia student, and she went to West Virginia to do flood damage assessments. She also has done smaller projects with Team Rubicon locally.

She became involved with Team Rubicon while taking an EMT class at Butler County Community College because a member of the team was there.

Ufner graduated from Butler High School in 1970. She earned a doctorate in psychology from the University of Pittsburgh in 2004. She did undergraduate work at Chatham University.

She does volunteer work with the Red Cross and as an EMT for Portersville Ambulance, and takes care of her mother. In the fall, she plans to attend paramedic school in Pittsburgh.