CDC worker's body found in Haiti

By Rhonda Cook

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The body of Diane Caves, a 31-year-old Atlanta woman on temporary assignment to Haiti, has been found, according to the National Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which dispatched her to Port-au-Prince just before a massive earthquake on Jan. 12.

She is the first known Atlanta fatality from the disaster that claimed an estimated 200,000 lives.

According to the CDC, Caves, a management and program analyst, was sent to Haiti on Jan. 6 for a three-week assignment to support the work of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief in Haiti.

Her body was recovered in the rubble of Hotel Montana, a popular place for Americans that was flattened in the Jan. 12 earthquake.

The U.S. State Department and the Health and Human Services Disaster Mortuary Response Team in Haiti notified the CDC and Caves' family, her husband in Atlanta and her parents in Tennessee, on Monday. An e-mail was distributed to CDC workers Tuesday morning.

Jeff Caves, her husband, and Diane Caves' parents released a statement: "We are all grateful for the extensive outpouring of prayers, phone calls, e-mails and cards of support and encouragement received over the past four weeks from friends, family, co-workers and the general public. Diane made a difference in the world and will be missed by all who knew her."

Caves started working with the CDC in April 2007 in the Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response.

CDC Director Thomas R. Frieden wrote in an e-mail to employees, "Diane's reasons for going to Haiti were characteristic of her deep commitment to helping others. Her sharp intellect, optimism and adventurous spirit touched all who met her."

No arrangements have been announced.

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