Medical Evacuation Stories

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This person is from a place called Sicsayeri, about 2 full days travel by boat up the Rio Coco river. He was working on his plantation when he slipped and fell, impaling himself with his machete, which they always use for their work. It went into his abdomen. Friends carried him back home, put him in a boat, and he traveled the rest of the day and all through the night to the nearest medical help, San Carlos. Upon his arrival the next day, the doctor in San Carlos realized this was an injury far beyond the limited medical care offered by their small clinic. He sent a message via radio to me, and within 45 minutes I was in San Carlos with the airplane. A half hour later, the patient was in Waspam and being carried in a truck the 5 minutes to the  hospital. It is not likely he would have survived the wait to find a boat going down the river (A few times a week), or the 10 to 15 hour boat ride down the river when he did find a boat.

At the San Carlos Airport ready for departure

While there transporting him, I also transported a 14 year old girl with a broken foot that needed more advanced medical care. 

Unloading the patient from the airplane

The Waspam airport -- meeting the truck from the hospital

It is all in a days work here!