A Tragic Day

For the official mercy ships statement check out this link http://www.mercyships.org/blog/entry/screening-day-update

This morning as I woke up I was quite exited to see what the day would hold as I was going to my first screening day with Mercy Ships. I had heard all these stories about how amazing it was to see patients coming in with the hope that maybe Mercy Ships could help heal them. People said that when patients walked out of screening with the ticket in their hand saying they were booked in for a surgery, the joy in there eyes was just unreal. 

Unfortunately today there were very few who got to experience that joy. Instead, today brought some of the most horrific things I have ever seen in my life. Things that I would only ever see in a movie and would have never wanted to see in person. As we arrived at the screening site this morning at about 4:00am, there were already hundreds of people sleeping outside the Freetown stadium. By about 10:00am there were an estimated 10 to 15 thousand people waiting in line to be seen by our doctors. I started out the day as a driver and I was also in charge of ordering all the food  from our local supplier and making sure there was enough to feed our patients and crew. As the morning went on the crowds broke through the structure of a line and there ended up being a mob of thousands of people, all desperate to get through the gate that was held closed by local police. My job change quickly to crowd control as the need was great but it seemed everything we tried didn't work; the crowd was just so desperate to get through the gate. Every time security would open the main gate to bring in the next set of patients, the crowd would push to try and get as many in as possible. It was hard to watch how desperate these people were just to see one of our doctors. Eventually, around 10:30am, the mob had escalated so much that the force of the crowd pushing broke the gate and a mob of people came rushing in. Within the mob there were many who were sick and injured; these patients couldn’t move properly and they fell and were crushed and trampled by those behind. Before we new what had happened there was a pile of fallen patients at the front gate, all being trampled by the desperate people behind who were trying to get in. As I stood on a wall trying to push people down who were climbing over to get to the screening side, I found myself about 10 feet from this pile where I could see the people at the bottom, unconscious and bleeding, as others were stepping on anyone who got in their way. Security managed to shut the gate within minutes of it bursting open, but people’s bodies were just stuck in this pile, even as others were trying to pull those fallen out. The scene was so disturbing that I had to look away. As I was pushing people off the wall, I just couldn’t watch the men and women, who for all I knew were dead at the bottom, get continually stomped on. Once the gate was completely closed our team was able to go in, without being trampled ourselves, and pull out the unconscious and severely injured bodies and bring them under a tent where we had nurses and doctors start working on them. We didn't have the proper equipment with us to help the severely injured, so we decided to bring them to the local emergency room. I then became an emergency driver and, while driving as fast I could through the chaotic streets of Freetown, found that I had an unconscious man in the back of my land rover along with four nurses who were trying to keep him alive. Praise God that we got to the hospital in time and he survived and is doing well. Unfortunately that was not the case for one of the other land rovers that left for the hospital. That patient was too injured, both from previous illness as well as injuries sustained at the stadium, and he died on his way to the hospital. 

When I got back we immediately evacuated the 300 of our crew members who were at the stadium as it started to become very unsafe for any of us to be there. The whole way back to the ship my car sat in silence, with many tears coming from a group of people who had had such high expectations for the day, but instead saw it end so terribly. We as an organization are regrouping and seeing what went so terribly wrong. We are assessing this situation so that we can continue screening here in Sierra Leone. In over 30 years and five times in Sierra Leone we have never had a screening go like this before. Our management team needs your prayers as they have to try and move forward from this and regroup, but also our crew and myself need your prayers as it was emotionally one of the hardest day I have ever faced. God has a purpose and a way of shining His light through this situation even though my mind is too small to comprehend that. I am just trusting in Him for His guidance.