I'm living a very satisfying moment right now. Sitting in my hammock, which is one of eleven spread out in a star shape connected to a central pole underneath the Peace Core workers house, I'm listening to music and relaxing with my FD friends having just bathed in a crisp, fresh, crystal clear river in Norteño, the jungle village we are staying in for three days to deliver a multi-day clinic.
Today produced some unexpected events, although it started normally enough; cockerels crowing at dawn, dogs causing merry hell and fighting underneath our hammocks; school aged children being bundled out of their houses, hair scraped back in perfect plats and bodies neatly covered in pristine white shirts and blue skirts; bleary eyed volunteers hopping out of hammocks and contemplating the day ahead over a cup of coffee and some fried bread. And the day continued as usual with bundles of children and clusters of teenage sisters presenting themselves and their various relatives for assessment. After what we thought was a very successful first day we were all relaxing in the clinic as the night set in when a commotion outside caught our attention. A woman was being rushed in towards us on a stretcher with blood all around. She had fallen whilst exiting her house (which is about 1.5m up from the ground) and landed on rocks on her head, knocking herself unconscious. Time for some gloves, a trauma assessment and some problem solving. Fortunately for her there didn't seem to be any immediate life threatening danger but her injuries were such that we had to immobilise her spine and get her to hospital to have X-rays to look for neck fractures.
Oh but hang on a minute, we're in the middle of the jungle in the dark and there's a river to cross to get to the road. Now you know why I mentioned problem solving..
Fortunately for us, we are a resourceful bunch with a broad set of skills. Our firefighter (a female, just in case you had pictured a man!) proved to be invaluable as did our four ambulance technicians. They co-ordinate the foot transport and worked together with great teamwork to deliver the patient to the waiting ambulance that we had ordered. Except that "ambulance" was pushing the definition just a little.. It did have impressive flashing blue lights which gave us all great feelings of reassurance as it arrived, but after a cursory inspection there was no escaping the fact that it was just an old flat bed pick up truck. No paramedic, no drugs, no nothing really. But it was wheels and it was the only option that could get our lady where she needed to go. So we strapped her on (if you can imagine this she is lying on a makeshift stretcher which has just been tied down to the truck, the end of the truck is open so her feet are poking out into nothing and at this point she's not actually secured to the stretcher by anything except for her head tape..). The ambulance driver seemed quite happy to head off like this but with scenes from a horror movie unfolding on our minds we persuaded him to wait whilst we secured the patient on to the stretcher so she wouldn't slide off the end of the truck as they started the bumpy ascent up the track to the road. It certainly gave me a new gratitude for our poor battered old NHS.
I am actually writing this end bit in retrospect two days later and we are still waiting for news of her condition. In all likelihood she will fine but she's not returned home yet so there's no way to know. We have only the pay phone in the village and it hasn't yet rung.
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