Zimbabwe Medevac

A week ago Friday we got a call that a man was ill and needed air lifting out to receive urgent medical attention.

Nothing hugely unusual in that, but the situation was complicated by the fact that he was in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, and the medical help he required was in Cape Town, 1100 miles away.

Permits were hurriedly obtained, a stretcher was loaded and the plane readied to leave the following day. He was, however, Zimbabwean and an emergency visa was not granted for travel the following day so we delayed our departure until we had word of the visa. This was finally granted on Tuesday, so Cathy and I flew up to Francistown, Botswana, for fuel and then on to Bulawayo that day.

Our plan then of course was to fly out early the next day but just before we drove out to the airport we got another call to say that although the visa was in the passport, the passport was still in Harare, and Harare was five hours drive away – but no one had any petrol, or transport. So, a day of planning and waiting ensued with regular phone calls for updates, with the passport finally arriving via a delayed internal flight at nine o clock that evening.

'Inflation'

We were back at the airport, one day late, at seven o clock the following morning to get the plane ready. The patient arrived two hours later on a mattress in the back of a small truck, we were almost ready to go except… immigration hadn’t yet arrived at the airport (they said they would be there at 06:00). Their phones were down but we eventually managed to get a message though and after a small bout of negotiation we were told that if we put the paperwork under their door at the airport, we were free to leave.

The six hours of flying to Cape Town, with a stop in Johannesburg for fuel and customs, was now relatively straight forward with only about two hours ‘weather’ to deal with. It was still a long way but we were at our destination by five in the afternoon where a minibus was waiting to take the patient to the hospital. We were very tiered and ready for some food and very grateful to the couple who opened up their house and put us up for the night.


But now Cape Town and Nelspruit, where we live, are at opposite ends of a big country, so the next day still meant seven hours of sitting looking out of the same Perspex window at the ground slowly slipping past underneath us. More weather caused us to divert, adding to the journey, but we finally made it home after four days, over 2500 miles (4100 km) and 16 hrs of flying.


Again, thank you for your prayers and support that help make a difference to people like this.

Paul and Cathy

Busy all of a sudden

Two weeks ago there was a 75 km mountain bike race in Barberton – the first big race of the year, which was quite muddy and took almost six hours. This last weekend Cathy and I ran the clinic at Londolozi game lodge again. Monday was spent getting the auto pilot in the 310 fixed in Johannesburg. Tuesday we hosted a new cell group that will meet in our house. Now it looks as if the next few weeks are set to be about as manic as it gets as it seems that everyone wants to go everywhere – right away!

The Zimbabwe water purifying flight is now being arranged for next Wednesday. We will already be up in Moz with a missions team on an eight day trip and so can continue up to Malawi, where pick the chemicals up, from there.

A few days after we get back we have been asked to transport 11000 crocodiles from a small town on the Zambezi River in Moz to South Africa – should be novel.

In between the two flights there is also a 100 km mountain bike race that Paul will be doing. In the mix with all this are some of the worst storms we have had for a long time (last night it thundered all night and left us with 60mm of rain and a small lake in the kitchen and bathroom).

We have a Mercy Air planning meeting tomorrow (Thursday) and Cathy and I will spend Friday afternoon at a memorial service for two cycling friends of ours who died tragically last week.

So, huge amounts of paperwork and planning and only limited time in which to do it.

We’ll let you know how it all goes.

In the mean time Cathy's delivered two more babies since we last wrote and Matthew has probably taken 2000 more photos.

Paul and Cathy

Time - Slip Sliding Away

Well there you go, I thought I’d have loads of time to catch up with things over Christmas, including this blog, but it seems life the universe and everything just got in the way.

Not long after I last blogged I took some people to Inhambane on the east coast of Mozambique. (Mozambique actually only has an east coast so that is stating the obvious really – a bit like saying a long necked giraffe). Anyway we were there for a few days with them whilst they sorted some details of a project they were involved in.

At the beginning of December I flew a missionary family to Vilanculos to start a month of missions work. I was due to collect them again tomorrow but three of them got malaria (one of them got it twice) and they actually needed fetching on the 26th December. As our son was home for only a short time, another pilot went up to get them.

There have been a number of other flights during December and then a whole run of flights during our two week Christmas shutdown, most of which seemed to involve more than a fair share of inclement weather. One involved going in and out of Jo’burg International which always keeps you on your toes but what should have been less than two and a half hours of flying turned into over four due to the weather, but at least the plane was clean afterwards! Another was a long two days collecting some guys from the SA/Moz border and flying them to Pretoria and back and the last one was a medivac from Mozambique which I have blogged about separately.

So, Christmas came and went but not much rest was had. We hit New Year still running from last year. My birthday even came and went without much time to reflect – not a bad thing I guess at my age!

Lastly, and the subject of another blog, was a whole week and a half’s planning for a flight that never actually happened. It was delayed till later in January and was supposed to involve taking a load of water purifying chemicals from Malawi to Zimbabwe.

Merry Christmas and a Busy New Year

We got a call between Christmas and New Year to do a medical evacuation off an island in the Indian Ocean just off the coast of Mozambique. We couldn't go straight away because of the weather but went at first light the next day.

The cloud that lifted just enough for us to get the plane to the local international airport on the Monday afternoon, enveloped it on Tuesday morning and we took off with about 50m visibility. First stop was Maputo where the cloud was at a 1000 ft but adequate for an instrument approach. We picked the paramedic up and were soon on our way back up through the cloud for the island of Bazaruto two hours north.

After landing there, an old door less Land Rover doubled as an ambulance labouring along a heavily sandy track to where the patient was and where the paramedic spent an hour with her before she was ready to make the return trip to the plane. It was then only a 20 min hop to Vilanculos, the small international airport on the mainland. A satellite phone call here revealed that the weather back in South Africa was still grim and that the airport was closed. Our only feasible option was to divert back to Maputo where there was medical help. Our flight was relatively straight forward although we did have to alter course slightly to the west for an hour to avoid a shed load of thunderstorms that had ganged up to form a system about 100 miles long. In Maputo the patient was taken to the local hospital for further checks and we had to find alternative accommodation for the night. The next day dawned slowly through the overcast and it wasn't until mid morning that we received word that the cloud had lifted enough in Nelspruit for us to attempt an approach. The patient and paramedic joined us again and we flew right down to minimums before landing back home just after midday on New Years Eve.

The ambulance and plane after landing back in Nelspruit.

Thank you to those of you who pray about these things for us. In the conditions we had the last few days, we certainly notice the difference.

Paul and Cathy

Hope for Zimbabwe

Just before Christmas we were contacted by a couple of mission organisations to fly some water purification chemicals into Zimbabwe.

Thing is, the chemicals were in Blantyre, Malawi and they need to get to Bulawayo in Zim.
Driving them in was impractical and in any case the need was immediate but we planned to do the flight as soon as we could get the flight permits and other paperwork sorted.

We managed to get the flight permits for entry into Malawi and Zimbabwe fairly quickly and verified that that the airports we need to visit in Malawi and Botswana had fuel. The customs import/export paperwork was a little more awkward to arrange so we delayed the trip by a few days as the last thing we wanted was to have the aircraft (and ourselves) impounded in Zim.

We planned fly up to Blantyre where we would load the chemicals. The next day we would fly to Bulawayo and deliver them to churches who would arrange for transportation to those in need. We thought we might spend one night in Bulawayo and then return to SA the next day. The whole trip would be about 1700 miles and involve five different countries.

We wrote many letters to customs officials in Malawi and Zimbabwe stating that the cargo was a gift and will not be sold and we arranged for clearing, and access for a vehicle to the plane for loading and unloading at the respective airports. There wasn’t much more to do except get in the plane and go. The weather has even cleared up in Nelspruit where we live although I was expecting to have to deal with a bit of weather on the way up to Malawi.

All that was required was two sets of funds. One for us for the cost of the fuel for the plane and one to cover the export and import duties of the supplies. These had been raised in Canada and wired to South Africa at the beginning of the week but didn't arrive. We delayed the flight a day and then another day waiting for the money to come, but it didn't. The warehouse in Blantyre closed today and wouldn’t open again till after New Year, so we ran out of time.

This time Africa wasn't to blame. Basically the funds had been sent from Canada with a note for the bank to check back with the donor before being transferred. That had been done but when it got routed through New York the note popped up on someone's computer again and the transaction was delayed and unfortunately no one relised until it was too late.

So, there I sat at home with a lot of unspent energy after a week of almost constant planning and anticipation. The next day I went for a long long bike ride with a mate from church which helped calm some of that.

We are terribly disappointed for the people of Zimbabwe that we could not bring this life-saving Christmas present to them. We did however resolve to go in the New Year. It will mean a lot of phoning, faxing, emailing and re-applying but if it helps a whole bunch of people it will be well worth it.


Paul and Cathy

Every now and then

Every now and then we get to do something really fun.

Our little bit of indulgence comes in the shape of a night away at a very prestigious private game lodge about two hours drive away.

The only condition is that we (read Cathy) run a clinic for the staff on Saturday morning. It is a joint effort though as she has taught me to do blood pressures and weigh people and that, along with finding the patients records in the file, keeps me busy and looking somewhat official and professional.

Then we go to the lodge for a meal, after which we are whisked away on an evening/night game drive. Back from that at 21:00 for another meal before an early night and a 05:00 call for coffee and biscuits and another comprehensive game drive the following day. All together quite pleasant and enjoyable.

It is arranged through one of the Christian clinics Cathy works with. They were asked by the lodge to try and provide cover each week end, and we probably get to go about three times a year.

We won't blog every time we go but to give you an idea of some of the stuff we get to see we'll include a few pictures below.

The Clinic

Rhino

Cheetah

Lion

Leopard

Elephant

Baboon

More Elephant

Leopard Cub

Pemba Medivac

"It's a go", crackled the voice on the telephone.

These were words that meant we could spring into action but three 'o' clock in the afternoon was now a bit late in the day.

We had been advised of the possibility of doing a medivac at midday and had got ourselves and the plane ready. The patient had been admitted to hospital and the doctors had suspected meningitis or cerebral malaria, either of which could lead to death within a day or two if immediate treatment wasn't given. But the patient was more than half way back to the equator from where we were and getting to them that day was now out of the question. Pemba is on the very north coast of Mozambique more than a thousand miles from Mercy Air and even in a plane that does over 170 mph, it was going to be a long way.

We have friends a third of the way up in Beira and a quick phone call secured us a lift from the airport and a bed for the night - we were very grateful. We arrived after dark and were up again before dawn to continue up to Pemba. The patient in question was actually a friend of ours from previous mission trips and had asked Cathy to come along to monitor him during the flight. In a way it was good to see him again although not quite under these circumstances. After airport paperwork and waiting for the patient to arrive from the hospital we back in the air and on our way home, this time loaded up with his wife and two kids, one of which was just nine months old.

There's not much you can say about seven hours of flying at 10,000ft, and the haze from the bush fires meant that the view was only slightly more interesting than the hour and a half of dark after the sun went down.

We landed safely in South Africa last night just after 19:00 and they rang us this morning to say that he had been kept in hospital till two in the morning after extensive tests. So far things are looking good but they will stay here for at least the next week for observation and treatment if necessary.

So, it was another of those occasions where your whole day is changed by a single phone call. We were privileged to be the ones who were able to practically offer assistance but without the prayers and support of people like yourselves, we or Mercy Air would not be in that position.

Thank you.

Paul and Cathy

The Perfect Romantic Coup

Fly Cathy to Mozambique for our anniversary and have a candlelit dinner in the evening.

And that's exactly what happened, although as you might guess, that was only the tip of the iceberg as far as the story was concerned.

The reason we were actually flying to Mozambique on our anniversary was to take a doctor team to Marromeu on the Zambezi River. The candlelit dinner was courtesy of the fact that the missionaries at whose house we found ourselves that night don't have electricity, and candles were the only way to light up the rice, beans, chicken and green veg we had for dinner.

It was still romantic, and a very worthwhile trip. We have flown this group many times before and they had asked Cathy to accompany us as she knows about a lot of things that many doctors from the US haven't even heard of. The missionaries there have been working into the Delta region of the Zambezi for many years. They used to travel three days by dugout canoe to get there, stay a week, and then three days back often traveling at night to catch the tides. Our helicopter does the trip in 20 minutes and so each day it made a number of flights in order to get the doctors and translators to the remote village of Ibo. Paul stayed in Marromeu to fuel the heli each time it returned.

Whilst walking around in Ibo Cathy spotted a two month old baby which had diarrhorea and was severely dehydrated. The mother had died during childbirth and a young girl of 15 was looking after it. The team were able to put up an IV and give antibiotics and the next day the heli bought the baby to a care centre in Marromeu where it will stay until it is strong enough to survive. If this baby had not been seen and treated it would likely of died in a day or two.


The work in the delta is a pressing one. There are huge amounts of people who don't have access to any medical care whatsoever.
It is your prayers and support that help us go back to bring Christ's love to those people in need.

Thank you.

Paul and Cathy