Free The Third Wave by Alison Thompson Page A
Authors: Alison Thompson
Galle, the capital of our region, where we would buy supplies, we would see thousands of people still in need and many places getting no help at all. I always took my first aid kit with me so that I could perform quick services if need be. Peoplewould be sitting in the streets with open infected wounds that had flies swarming on them. The flies were everywhere; even the hospital was infested with the dirty little buggers.
Our gang tried for a while to spread out farther along the coast, delivering food, water, and medical supplies to other villages, but we soon became overwhelmed by the size of the job. We realized that we couldn’t help everyone; we were only a four-person team, and there were limits to what we could accomplish. We talked about it and agreed that we needed to concentrate just on Peraliya.
I devoted most of my time and energy to the makeshift hospital, where we were seeing over a thousand patients a day. I tied my hair back under a white scarf and drew a red cross on it so that people would know to come to me for first aid. I found a Dutch doctor and two nurses at the Hikkaduwa guesthouse, where a steady stream of volunteers were now arriving, and recruited them to join me. They had acquired several doses of the tetanus vaccine, and I stored the precious serum in a bucket filled with ice that I bought from a town vendor. I carried that blue bucket with me everywhere, making sure the ice didn’t melt so the batch wouldn’t go bad.
Not long after that, I met two young German doctors, named Sebastian and Henning, at the guesthouse. They were fresh out of medical school and became valuable members of our team. Henning was brilliant at translating the names of the various drugs that were donated by volunteers from all over the world. He built a medicine cabinet and carefully separated and labeled all the drugs. Sebastian created a mobile ambulance out of a tiny three-wheeled vehicle called a tuk-tuk. He placed a German paramedicsticker on the side to make it appear more official, but it still looked like a big toy. Tuk-tuks were the main mode of transportation in the area and were a cheap way to get around. They had no doors, and it could get quite breezy at high speeds. Sebastian and Henning drove off to faraway villages treating people and would sometimes drive them back to the field hospital for further help. Later, Sebastian bought the hospital a refrigerator, which proved to be a major turning point because it allowed us to store important medicines.
As I worked in the hospital, mothers told me heart-wrenching stories of the children who were washed from their arms. I remained strong as my translator stumbled through broken dialogue and women cried into my chest.
I came down with a 103-degree fever for a few days and perspiration flooded my body. Still, I felt there was no time to stop and rest. The villagers had larger problems than mine.
Children surrounded the hospital all day long begging for milk, and when they didn’t get my attention, they would pinch my arm or leg really hard until I screamed out in pain and turned to notice them. I had brought paper and pencils with me, which I gave to the children to keep them busy. They started drawing tsunami images with dead bodies and giant waves destroying their homes. I hung the pictures on the hospital walls and the kids drew hundreds more.
Wherever we went, we recruited tourists and expatriates living on the island to come work in our village. In addition, word of our field hospital had spread throughout the region, so people would just show up at our village to offer help. Sometimes volunteers would offer us $100 in cash, but we would give them a listof supplies instead. They would turn around and drive miles inland to find stocked stores, returning by the end of the day like Santa Clauses, bearing bags of the goods we needed. Many journalists who were in the region to report on the situation were so affected by the devastation that they crossed
Our gang tried for a while to spread out farther along the coast, delivering food, water, and medical supplies to other villages, but we soon became overwhelmed by the size of the job. We realized that we couldn’t help everyone; we were only a four-person team, and there were limits to what we could accomplish. We talked about it and agreed that we needed to concentrate just on Peraliya.
I devoted most of my time and energy to the makeshift hospital, where we were seeing over a thousand patients a day. I tied my hair back under a white scarf and drew a red cross on it so that people would know to come to me for first aid. I found a Dutch doctor and two nurses at the Hikkaduwa guesthouse, where a steady stream of volunteers were now arriving, and recruited them to join me. They had acquired several doses of the tetanus vaccine, and I stored the precious serum in a bucket filled with ice that I bought from a town vendor. I carried that blue bucket with me everywhere, making sure the ice didn’t melt so the batch wouldn’t go bad.
Not long after that, I met two young German doctors, named Sebastian and Henning, at the guesthouse. They were fresh out of medical school and became valuable members of our team. Henning was brilliant at translating the names of the various drugs that were donated by volunteers from all over the world. He built a medicine cabinet and carefully separated and labeled all the drugs. Sebastian created a mobile ambulance out of a tiny three-wheeled vehicle called a tuk-tuk. He placed a German paramedicsticker on the side to make it appear more official, but it still looked like a big toy. Tuk-tuks were the main mode of transportation in the area and were a cheap way to get around. They had no doors, and it could get quite breezy at high speeds. Sebastian and Henning drove off to faraway villages treating people and would sometimes drive them back to the field hospital for further help. Later, Sebastian bought the hospital a refrigerator, which proved to be a major turning point because it allowed us to store important medicines.
As I worked in the hospital, mothers told me heart-wrenching stories of the children who were washed from their arms. I remained strong as my translator stumbled through broken dialogue and women cried into my chest.
I came down with a 103-degree fever for a few days and perspiration flooded my body. Still, I felt there was no time to stop and rest. The villagers had larger problems than mine.
Children surrounded the hospital all day long begging for milk, and when they didn’t get my attention, they would pinch my arm or leg really hard until I screamed out in pain and turned to notice them. I had brought paper and pencils with me, which I gave to the children to keep them busy. They started drawing tsunami images with dead bodies and giant waves destroying their homes. I hung the pictures on the hospital walls and the kids drew hundreds more.
Wherever we went, we recruited tourists and expatriates living on the island to come work in our village. In addition, word of our field hospital had spread throughout the region, so people would just show up at our village to offer help. Sometimes volunteers would offer us $100 in cash, but we would give them a listof supplies instead. They would turn around and drive miles inland to find stocked stores, returning by the end of the day like Santa Clauses, bearing bags of the goods we needed. Many journalists who were in the region to report on the situation were so affected by the devastation that they crossed