A story of pain and heroism

This week has been one of the most horrible in my life.

On Sunday afternoon, I had just finished my tasty ham and cheese sandwich (spoils from my Friday trip to Douala). I was reading a magazine when I received a call from the Country Director for Peace Corps Cameroon, Robert Strauss. He said, "Peter, there's been an accident involving a number of volunteers and they're on their way to a hospital in Douala. I might ask you to go there to be with them and help out."

"Sure, Robert, I will be happy to help out in anyway I can", I replied. He said he would call back in an hour, so I hung up without any details or without knowing who was involved. In an effort not to panic with fear, I decided it would be best just to get ready to walk out the door in an hour, so I took a shower and packed a bag with everything I might need for a couple of days. I then tried calling some of my good friends who live around the area of the accident to see if they were involved or if they had any details. First, I called Andy since he's usually on top of things like this, especially since he lives in the area. No answer. Then I called my good friend Kristina (who went with my parents and I up north for a week). No answer. At this point, I'm starting to get nervous. I then called Isabelle, another good friend who lives right in that area as well. She answered. She was at her house and in-between hysterical sobs and moments of togetherness, I gathered that quite a few people were involved and that she was most worried about Kristina. I told her to get to a hospital (in passing she mentioned that she probably had a broken shoulder) and that Peace Corps was on top of it. I also told her I would meet her at the hospital in Douala.

About fifteen minutes later, Robert called back and asked me to go ahead to the hospital. I picked up the bag that I had packed and walked out the door. I got to the area where the buses come for Douala and there were no buses. Luckily, there was a private car charging the same price going up almost immediately. I waited for a few minutes while the car filled (a total of seven people, including driver in a Toyota Corolla). He dropped me a little further outside town than normal, but there was a nice group of motos waiting and one took me out to the hospital.

Douala General Hospital is actually quite an impressive structure for Cameroon. Its set back in its own campus behind gated security walls. Its not anywhere close to anything, but it has probably five hundred beds. As it was Sunday evening, there weren't a whole lot of people around, but I eventually made it to the emergency room. When I arrived, I found no one. I looked around and there were a couple of nurses and doctors, but no patients. I asked one doctor where the americans were, and he said they hadn't arrived, but that they had received a call letting them know they were on the way.

An hour later, I was joined by Dr. Gwan who had arrived from Yaounde. I had been trying to keep as calm as possible, knowing there was nothing I could do to change or help the situation. Dr. Gwan went about preparing the hospital staff with new details on condition and numbers. At that point, we understood that there were 13 on their way. And all I knew was that some of my best friends here had been injured.

I went up with the Dr.'s driver to wait by the front gate since she had gotten a call that three people were making their way inside and couldn't find the Emergency room (it is REALLY hard to find, and far from the front gate- not the best architectual planning). I passed Matt on the way in and since he didn't looked to banged up, I just pointed him in the right direction and kept looking for the others. I never did find the others, since they went around a different direction. Eventually, the cars started coming in though. One more Peace Corps car with the other doctor, an ambulance and a Mercedes of a doctor in Nkongsamba.

As the ambulance entered, I ran back to the emergency room area and watched in horror as the doors were opened and a number of my friends were there in various positions, two appearing to be seriously injured: Kristina and Nancy. Cathy was with Kristina, talking to her, rubbing her, and she was obviously having wild seizure-type activity. The doctors had to almost peel Cathy out so they could remove Kristina from the back of the ambulance. Cathy was clearly in a state of shock, having spent the past couple of hours doing the same thing. Once Kristina was taken out, it was clear there was a severe injury to her head. There was blood everywhere. In fact, they brought her into the corridor of the hospital to take her off the stretcher and put her on a hospital gurney. A hand-sized pool of blood fell on the floor, and every time for the rest of the night I went outside, I had to step over it. I went to go hold Cathy, another of my best friends, who had injured her shoulder. The others slowly made their way into the emergency room.

I worked to take care of the rest of the volunteers as they were being processed, wounds dressed, x-rays taken and initial shock wore off. I also worked to get them food, since they hadn't eaten since the morning. All told, three people were put into intensive care, another three had serious breaks and eight people had minor breaks and various scratches and abrasions. I ran around to all the different rooms, and after midnight was allowed to see the three in intensive care: Nancy, Ryan and Kristina. I wasn't actually allowed inside, but I looked at them through the windows from the visitor area (kinda like the windows into the rooms for newborns in the US).

I finished up delivering food, medicine and generally looking after people after midnight, at which point things slowed down. The drivers had already gone back to the trucks to sleep, and I just didn't think I could, given all that was going on. I eventually tried to go to sleep, both in the truck and in the waiting room, but both were uncomfortable and I couldn't get my eyes to close. Around 4am, I got up and went to visit Kristina and the others, just looking through the windows. Sending positive thoughts. Praying.

The next day, I started going around to folks about 6:30am, and of course everyone else was awake as well. I brought around food, water and toiletries (the hospital doesn't even provide soap for the baths or sinks, much less toilet paper!) At that time, I started piecing together the whole story of how this all happen.

All fourteen of them were at a fifteenth volunteer's house for a weekend "meeting". Basically all of the volunteers in the general area were there, but the village they met in was two hours up a mud road from the nearest main road and larger village. They were all leaving at the same time, so the paid the driver of an empty pickup beer delivery truck to take them all to the main road where they could get real buses to take them the rest of the way home.

At least once on the way down, the road was in such bad condition that they got stuck and had to get out and push the vehicle a bit. About an hour and a half down the road, with 12 standing in the back of the pickup and two inside the cab with the driver, the driver lost control of the truck, fishtailed and flipped the truck over into the ditch on the side of the road. In the process, everyone in the back went flying out, and the two inside were jostled around quite a bit. Apparently it flipped over entirely and ended up on its side on top of Greg's foot. Two of the lesser injured hearing his cries, with super-human strength lifted the truck up. Others immediately realized that Kristina was the worst injured and was in fact unconscious, went to stem the bleeding. She had been thrown out and landed head first onto a rock, crushing the top right side of her skull, and sending part of the skull into the brain matter tearing it.

The driver, although bleeding, fled the scene in a private vehicle that passed by in the direction they had just came. In his defense, if he was caught by others from the larger village, its very likely that "jungle justice" would have taken over and he would have been killed for causing a horrible thing like this (he may still be in danger).

The next car coming down towards Melong, the larger city in the direction they were going, stopped and the driver came over to help. He was so hysterical and trying to order people around that they actually sent him away. My friend Cathy is EMT-trained and was able to take control of the situation in a calm manner, which likely saved Kristina in the end. The next few cars were a bit calmer, and shuttled everyone down to Melong and to Nkongsamba where a basic hospital is located.

On the scene of the accident, Lisa used the satellite phone she was lucky to be carrying to call Peace Corps. They began to scramble to get whatever was needed out to the volunteers. In Melong, they waited over an hour for Peace Corps to tell them definitively if they were going to be able to find a helicopter for Kristina and a few of the others who were bleeding (four received cuts to the head and were bleeding from them). They were eventually told that none could be found (apparently they had even called the President of Cameroon's office looking to use his, to no avail). And so, they proceeded along with the ambulance (which is essentially an empty minivan here, with NO equipment inside except a couple of boards for picking people up and a first aid kit) they had found coming from Nkongsamba.

On the road from Melong to Douala, the closest city with a decent hospital, there are likely 100 speed bumps. Not only was this incredibly painful for them, but also slowed their trip significantly. Along the way, the ambulance even got a flat tire and stopped in a different town to buy a replacement. It seemingly just got worse and worse. Meanwhile there are five people in the back of this ambulance, one unconscious, one with multiple broken ribs and three others with assorted broken bones or caring for those severely injured. Some eight hours after the accident, they finally arrived at the hospital.

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The following day, I did lots of visiting, bringing food and the backpacks they were able to collect from the scene to them so the ones who were able could change into clean clothes after taking a shower. In the afternoon, the Peace Corps Country Director arrived with a counselor, went to see everyone, packed up the eight least injured and returned to Yaounde where they could all be a little more comfortable around Peace Corps headquarters. Many of them were lodged by US Embassy staff who had heard about the accident and wanted to help out.

I stayed back with Dr. Gwan, and we worked to medivac two of the seriously injured guys, Greg (with the crushed foot) and Ryan (assorted broken bones and severe internal bleeding in the hip area). Greg was put into a leg wrap around a half cast and was in severe pain. Ryan seemed much more in control, but certainly wasn't walking anywhere. They each got their own ambulances, and the Peace Corps SUV followed. The roads in Douala are horrific as is the traffic. I rode in the ambulance with Greg to help try to keep his mind off the pain- he felt every bump in the road, of which there were many. We got about halfway to the airport and ran into traffic that was not going anywhere due to some accident ahead. It was only a two lane road, so we did a U-turn and went the really long way to the airport on even worse roads. It was truly torture for them.

When we arrived at the airport, we drove right onto the tarmac to the waiting Air Ambulance jet. It was basically a converted six or eight seat corporate jet. The crew of two pilots, two nurses and a doctor were there and took over as soon as we arrived. They did a checkup of the two guys, gave them some morphine and we loaded them onto the plane. Just seeing this crew and their equipment and the way they talked to and handled the guys, I felt so much relief.

After the plane took off, we finally ate a real meal and checked into a hotel on Monday night. It was quite a relief to sit down and eat a good meal. When I got to the hotel, I couldn't sleep for a couple of hours since I was still pretty wound up, and I noticed all that time on my feet had caused them to swell. I guess I am getting old...

Tuesday was the the day to prepare for the departure of the two most seriously injured, Kristina and Nancy. Because of their injuries, the doctors were afraid of swelling and the effect of altitude on them, so they were held back a day. During the night, Dr. Paul, the head Peace Corps doctor for West Africa, arrived and woke Dr. Gwan and the driver to go out to the hospital to visit the four remaining women. In the morning, I got up early (I slept maybe four hours) and went shopping for food and flowers. Since fresh flowers are hard to find and sometimes not welcome in the ICU, I went to the 'Chinese store' and got some plastic-y silk flowers for the four women who remained in the hospital in Douala. They really appreciated them and the food. I spent a lot of time with each of them, including several hours holding Kristina's hand and talking to her. She remained in a coma, but was kicking around and having other seizure-type movements.

The plane took longer to arrive than expected, but eventually took off around 2:30am. This was after two hours of prep time with the medical team from the plane who had come to the hospital to look over the charts and ensure that the two women were transported correctly. Kristina was obviously a particular worry since she needed to be respirated by hand during the transport, and Nancy had accumulated some unwanted fluid in her chest which had to be drained. It was not easy, but I rode in the ambulance with Kristina, and we did it all again. They arrived safely early Wednesday morning.

Wednesday was a bit easier, and we didn't even get to the hospital until almost noon. Isabelle and Erin were the last two, both with arm, elbow and shoulder injuries. They went out on the midnight flight to Johannesburg thru Nairobi. Isabelle had been dating and American ex-pat in Douala for a while who came by to bring food and even bought me a drink while they were getting their things together. Everyone was happy to get out of the hospital, so we ended up hanging out at the hotel until it was time to leave for the flight. Dr. Laura, one of our doctors, escorted them and they enjoyed the business class flight down. One of the advantages of getting in a car wreck, I suppose.

Thursday around noon, after doing some shopping and visiting a friend in Douala, I had my own driver who took me to Edea to get a change of clothes and then onwards to Yaounde. The eight who had left on Monday were all still there, and we were all happy to be together. Since then, I've been hanging out, decompressing and going through some counseling sessions. We even had a pool party at the new ambassador's house (which was pretty sweet). Slowly things are returning to normal.

We're all still really worried about Kristina. Her parents are now down with her, but her condition has not really changed since before she left Douala. She's still in a coma and we're all hoping and praying for the best. If you have a moment, please pray for her as well. If you want to see a picture of her, the link of photos from my parents' visit has one or two of her. She looks like she could be my sister. In some weird way, I guess she is.