Our last 3 days

Dear Family,
Let me start with Sabbath morning, which dawned crystal blue and sunny. It was so nice to know we could relax and enjoy the peace and quiet for a day. We leisurely (well, at least me, Marilyn was probably frantically scurrying around) got ready for church. We had eaten breakfast and were almost to leave, when the hospital radio called me and said there was an emergency in Waspam. It was a lady who had just had her baby, and she had pre-eclampsia. I got the stretcher in the plane and was in Waspam on at their airport within 30 minutes. The lady was unconscious. There wasn't room for her family in the plane, but, thanks to some friends in Montana, I gave them some money for transport, medicine, and food. I flew her and a doctor to Port, and met the ambulance on the runway. I had called ahead and told them to be sure to have a stretcher. They had shown up with one before (another flight some time ago) and couldn't figure out how to get it unlocked to take it out of the ambulance. I was hoping for better luck this time. Keep in mind, this is the biggest hospital on the Atlantic coast of Nicaragua. This time they detached it and got it out fine. There was no doctor with them, which was OK I guess since I had a doctor, but that meant he had to accompany them to the hospital before returning to me.  Anyway,  it was a folding stretcher, and it lifted up so you could flatten it out inside, and lift it up for transport. It was a nice one with wheels. The local airport police figured out how to get it raised up, after some poking and prodding on it by the medical people. We got the lady out of the plane onto the stretcher, and wheeled her the 20 feet to the back of the ambulance. Then they tried to collapse the stretcher down to put it inside, and it wouldn't collapse. The worked on it a couple minutes, then decided to just put it in fully extended. The head went in fine, and the whole unit rolled forward fine with the lady right near the roof, until her feet came along. They almost hit the roof with 6 people pushing it in, but I and one other person stopped them just before her feet got pinched between the top of the roof and the stretcher. The looked it over a bit, then pulled her back out, slid her off the stretcher onto the ambulance floor, left the stretcher, and took off with wheels spinning over the bumps and bounces on the dirt road beside the runway with their siren blaring. Attached is a picture of them trying to get the stretcher into the ambulance , but the feet wouldn't go.
I was back home before lunch, and had a quiet Sabbath afternoon.
Sunday we got up at 5 AM and finished our preparations to go to Lapan for a mobile clinic. By 6:50 we were ready to go. I decided to take the whole family, the kids have never been to Lapan. I had the room, and it is good to take them when possible. Gerson, the doctor in training from Leon (Pacific coast) showed up late, at 7:30, he had a flat bike tire during the 1 hour ride from his local village to here. We piled in the plane with all the medicine. I left my fuel a little low, so we were still 200 pounds under weight. It is only a 35 minute flight. The Lapan runway was nice and dry, compared to what it had been earlier. We hiked the 1/2 mile to the town through mud that sometimes went over our boots. The local nurse helped a little, and Marilyn and Gerson saw 64 patients. I traded the weight of the medicine used for oranges, and we used 3/4 of the runway taking off. After returning home, I took Gerson the 1/2 hour to his village on my motorcycle, returning in the dark. The people in Lapan are happier from our help, and I hope many people slept better. We were tired out, and our kids had a wonderful time playing with the local village kids. Pictures are on Picasa, accessed through our web page under photos, www.wingsovernicaragua.org. Many of the local kids had never seen white children.
Monday morning we got up early and got ready to go to Port for our monthly shopping trip and a big church meeting that lasts 3 days. We packed everything, which is a major job for a 3 day trip, and left at 7:30 AM. We got 1 mile to the main road, and were told there is a strike closing down the road 5 hours ahead, 1 hour before Port. They were currently stopping only buses, and letting trucks like ours through, but that changes minute by minute. We didn't want to risk driving that far to be turned around, so we returned home. Now maybe we'll take a day to recover!
Relaxing in Nicaragua,
Clint

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Wings Over Nicaragua
Clint and Marilyn Hanley
Web: www.wingsovernicaragua.org
Email: hanley@softhome.net