Three Hurricanes, Three Crashes, and a Devastating Explosion

    It's been a really rough couple of weeks. Honduras was hit not by one but TWO hurricanes in TWO WEEKS! Hurricane Eta passed south of the hospital flooding the city of San Pedro Sula and displacing hundreds of families. The airport that I normally fly into is completely under water. A notice was sent out saying that the airport will be closed for at least a month. This week Hurricane Iota followed in Eta's tracks re-flooding San Pedro Sula and displacing the same hundreds of families. 

    Hospital Loma de Luz was hit by it's own personal hurricane the weekend between Eta and Iota that we are still recovering from. It all started on Saturday evening in the middle of a beautiful little wedding on our hospital's beach in front of a gorgeous Honduran sunset. Right after Pastor Rony told the groom, "You may now kiss the bride" ... it happened... Dr Anthony's radio crackled, "SQ Balfate Code Blue in the emergency room!" A patient was in trouble.  Dr Anthony and I jump on my motorcycle to go help our comrades at the hospital. Now, trying to ride two up on a motorcycle on a sandy beach path with lots of huge roots sticking out of the ground for only the second time ever isn't such a great idea. About 20 feet into our frantic ride, I hit a big root dumping my motorcycle and us almost into the swamp off the path.  I jump back on the moto and take off leaving Anthony to find himself a ride up. Upon arriving at the hospital, the patient was an elderly gentleman who unfortunately ended up passing away. I returned to the wedding reception but not without dumping my motorcycle for the second time in a half hour almost in the same spot. 

the machines keeping our brain 
injury patient alive

    I had barely returned to my house from the wedding, when the radio crackled again, "CQ Balfate Code trauma in the emergency room!"  I jumped on my motorcycle and peeled out of the driveway. This time making it to the hospital without any accidents (success!). There was already chaos in the ER as every missionary doctor on site, a doctor from the local clinic, and the Honduran nurses on duty were scrambling to take care of the patients who had just come in. Two drunk men on motorcycles riding at very high speed had crashed head on into each other on the dirt road in front of the hospital. One with a shattered femur and the other with an obviously severe brain injury, a badly cut foot, and severed toe who quickly became ICU status on a ventilator. During our struggle to transfer our intubated brain injury patient onto the x-ray table, another patient arrived. 

    A young pregnant woman who was due in three weeks said that she was worried that she hadn't felt her baby move since early in the morning and wanted to check on him. It is a rather frequent occurrence that women come in wanting to check on their babies so I really wasn't concerned as I started putting on the fetal monitor on her in the delivery room.  I put the heart rate probe on her belly expecting to hear the reassuring thumping of the baby's heart but there was silence. "Don't worry," I told her,"He is just hiding because he is shy." After a few more minutes of searching in vain, I grabbed the ultrasound machine. The ultrasound confirmed what I my gut already told me which was then confirmed by two doctors after me. The baby was gone. What followed was that all too familiar haunting scream that only comes from mothers grieving the loss of the her child. Once heard, it is a sound that is never forgotten. 

    I really needed to just go home after that but on my way out the hospital door, a motorcycle carrying three men came flying up the hill honking loudly and stopped in front of the door. The man on the back pulled the bloody man in the middle off the motorcycle yelling, "They tried to kill him!" The man had a huge bleeding laceration to the back of his neck where someone had tried, unsuccessfully, to decapitate him with a machete. The hospital looked like a war zone. Blood everywhere. 

The aftermath of that night lasted all week as our medical staff induced and delivered the beautiful stillborn baby boy, fought for the life of our brain injury patient, and surgically repaired the shattered femur. 

Just three days later, Honduras was hit by Hurricane Iota bringing lots of wind and rain to our area but thankfully no flooding. Lots of downed trees knocked out power to the area which has been out since Monday night. We are blessed to have generator back up at the hospital allowing us to plug in lanterns and phones, use the washing machine at our guest hotel, and have internet off and on. The power company restored power to the surrounding villages last night but not to the hill that our hospital and missionary housing is on. It is expected to be out until at least Monday. Today is another typical cold (78 degrees) rainy day during rainy season bringing periods of heavy rain and thunderstorms. 

And then there was the explosion...A couple of days ago, I made my way up to my apartment from the hospital to discover something dreadfully awful. My beloved coffee pot had exploded leaving shards of glass all over my counter. Spiritual warfare? Alas, I have had to seek other means of finding that life giving substance. Thank you to friends who have been coming to my rescue but somehow I need to get a new one. 

Praises

      We are thankful that there was not much damage to the hospital and missionary housing from hurricanes Eta and Iota 

Prayer Requests
1) Pray that the power will come back on soon! 
2) Pray for the family of our brain injury patient who passed away early yesterday morning. 

3) Pray for the thousands of people affected by the hurricanes.  

Enjoying a break in the rain

The San Pedro Sula airport is under water