Bus Wreck

Last night Dawn and I had gotten the little kids to bed, and sat down to enjoy a cup of decaf Dunkin Donuts coffee (courtesy of Dr. Lori York--thank you, Lori!!) when I heard over the radio that there had been a bus wreck and multiple people had come to the hospital. I walked over to the hospital to see if I could help.

Apparently a Greyhound type of bus had hit another vehicle and run off the road. Out of the 80 people who were on the bus, ten injured people were brought to the hospital (how I do not know.) The wreck occurred about a kilometer down the road from the hospital. One man had a deep cut under his chin. I took him to the suture room and started to sew him up. In the meantime, Dr. Mendoza and Dr. Estrada were seeing the other patients. I finished closing the wound and then checked him over. He had no other significant injuries. Most of the other patients only had minor injuries as well, and the ones who had been wounded more seriously were taken from the scene of the accident to a hospital in Tegucigalpa.




Sewing a patient's chin.



One young man was not so lucky. He had contusions on his abdomen and swelling on the left side of his abdomen. We suspected a tear of his spleen which can cause life threatening internal bleeding. Dr Estrada called one of the hospitals in Tegucigalpa and made arrangements to take him there. An ambulance came out from Tegu and met our truck about two thirds of the way to the city. See the picture below of our truck ambulance. Dr. Mendoza is sitting on the side, before the truck left the hospital.

Imagine being the patient--not much fun to ride for an hour or two in the back of a pickup with a life threatening injury and 60 degree weather. We will be praying for another ambulance, as we have realized that, for those patients who can sit up (in the cab), the truck is great in many ways as it is built to handle these roads. However, this man needed to lie down. We are glad that the hospital is here and able to minister to people in emergencies like this one or just for routine check-ups or to delivery a baby.





Our patient in the back of the pickup truck with Dr. Mendoza sitting with him. Summer, our pharmacy intern, rode in the back of the truck with the patient on the way to meet the ambulance from Teguc.






A picture of the wrecked bus.