WARNING!!! at the end of the post there are 2 ugly pictures.
that was my initial flying when I arrived in Tanzania in ‘99, after a few vain weeks in Kenya. Flying ambulance basically, performing medical outreach programs. The commitment was to volunteer for 3 years. 3 years…I took a few days to think about it. In the end those 3 years went in a flash! No regret at all and I’m now more than happy to join Flying medical Service for a second tour, though a much shorter one.
there was some retraining required, ‘coz from school and book to this job, there is, let’s say…a big gap. I loved it, never complained once, swallowed every flying tip and lesson.
here landing at the foot of the volcano Oldoinyo Lengai with some decent cross wind, shown by the way the plane is banking to its right.
I was a bit surprised to discover occasional bad weather like the crappy one we’ve got in Belgium. I expected storms or nothing but blue sky I guess.
my first emergency during the first week was a Maasai warrior with a spear in the head, near the ear. His friends had lead him through the most remote bush for 4 days. 4 days! Walking amidst trees and bumpy tracks with a heavy half metal spear in the head! Forget pain killers. I didn’t see the spear X rays but it must have been similar to the one above. The doctor in the bush hospital could only remove the spear, so we flew him to a better equipped hospital. In this photo, the second emergency in the second week: an arrow through the forehead down towards the lower jaw. I thought that if this was the average spectacular pattern for medical evacuation my 3 years would be more interesting than initially thought. It cooled down a bit after that, just a bit. By the way the 2 guys survived, with nice scars, but they’re doing fine.
luxury here, 2 huts for the patients and the medical staff we were carrying from one remote village to the next.
Maasai boy with typical extended ears. Less typical is the pill container through his lobe. The wooden wedge is the norm usually.
sometimes we had to fix the plane on the spot, (and sleep on the spot…)
the white circular thing under the wing is not a radar but a scale for the babies.
no hut here so the big tree will for shade.
a scale, a simple and cheap tool but it tells so much on the baby’s health.
the airstrip…good condition but hard to spot sometimes. Luckily the tree was a very good landmark.
WARNING!!! second reminder, the pictures below are quite graphic and show blood.
the guy had spotted his wife in bed with his brother. Maasai are pretty cool about sex but there are rare rules nevertheless. So they had a fight, the brother must have feared for his life to use the machete in this extreme way. Now this guy here had been waiting patiently a coupla days for us. The doctor here is examining the damages. The eye is history obviously. I flew him to the hospital where employees took care of him and tried to convince him to call the cops. Of course the guy declined and said this was family business and he’d take care of it. So that means the slashed brother and wife might, might, arrive to the hospital soon after.
good luck getting back into your new (old) job! Mij x
Posted by: Mirjam | 22 July 2010 at 02:57 PM