Imagine

Imagine for a moment, taking a breathtaking drive through the winding mountain roadsinn Honduras. The scenery is lush, tropical and very green. The mountain valleys and passes, are like candy for your eyes. The Coconut and Banana trees bending gently to the breeze. Imagine for a moment, rounding a curve in the road and meeting a bus head on. You’re seriously injured and trapped in your car. What happens next? Someone will call 911 on the ever-present cell phone. Police, Fire and EMS will respond. The scene is secured, traffic is diverted around the accident site. EMS works to stabilize you until the fire department can extricate you from your car. You are transported by ground ambulance or are air lifted to the nearest trauma facility. Right? Wrong! Now, imagine for a moment that you are in a country where most people can’t afford cell phones and if someone does have one, the mountains will almost certainly interfere with the signal. The nearest land line may be 20 miles away. Imagine for a moment, someone finds a phone, but there is no established national emergency number to call. The nearest police station is a roadside checkpoint and the police have no radios or vehicles and the nearest fire department is back in the city 2 ½ hours away. What happens next?

What happens next is that a few locals will throw down some tree branches on either side of the accident site. That is all the notice that other motorists will have that they are approaching an accident. The other motorists, will of course, need to see what’s happened so they will park their cars and converge on the scene. They will probably try to pull open the car doors by rocking the car with absolutely no thought to protecting your c-spine. No one will take the time to stop your bleeding because they won’t have anything to stop it with anyway. No one will bother to call an ambulance because there just aren’t any. Imagine for a moment, how they will get you out of the car. They will try to pull and pry with whatever they have available. They will tie ropes to the doors and grab a passing horse, which is also in the road, and try to force the doors open that way. When that doesn’t work, they will find someone with a large truck and bigger, stronger rope, and all the while they will continue pulling and prying. Still, no one has begun to treat the patient. 7 or 8 hours later they will have miraculously gotten you out of the car, loaded you into the back of a pickup truck and are now speeding to the nearest hospital, which is an hour and a half away. You have still had no medical treatment. So much for the “Golden Hour”. All of this is hard to imagine, but for a moment, just try.

Rodger Harrison president of Paramedics For Children during the early days in Honduras helping an accident victim

The Copán Ruinas PFC squad the first in Honduras

Imagine for a moment, that everything we have just described is not a story made up to entertain you because it is not. It is exactly what happens on the roads where we live. Imagine for a moment, what it is like to be a trained US paramedic living in the mountains of Western Honduras and not having the equipment or supplies to properly respond to an accident. Imagine for a moment, trying to do your job, but not having a single familiar, tool to work with. We don’t have to imagine it because we are paramedics working with a Children's charity in a third world country.

Paramedics For Children is a grassroots charity that is trying very hard to change the outcome of stories like we have just told you. Over the course of 11 years we have brought in 38 ambulances and trained over 300 volunteers to staff the ambulances in 9 communities in Honduras and Guatemala. Every ambulance and piece of equipment we use has been donated from all over the United States and Canada. We are always looking for volunteers to assist us. We are always scouring the different EMS or Fire agencies looking for ambulances or rescue equipment that they may be willing to donate. Imagine for a moment, how you, or your agency could help to eradicate stories like the one that you just “imagined”. Please, pass this story on because we need your help and donations. Please help us to spread the word. We need more ambulances and other life saving gear, and we need it now! You can learn more about Paramedics For Children on our web site http://www.paramedicsforchildren.org or email us at rodger@paramedicsforchildren.com