Rich

Muskato is pregnant, and lives in the remote village of Makapa. Her waters break and her baby is about to be born. Her excitement is mixed with apprehension as she thinks through the impending risks. She lives in a village hours away from any hospital and, as she had a cessarian last time, she knows she will most likely need medical help again this time.

She paddles downstream to the closest aid post at Awaba. There they can tell her baby is distressed, but they don’t know what to do. She clambers into another boat and travels to the closest hospital at Balimo. She arrives to find there are no doctors there, only nurses.

She hasn’t felt her baby move for a while. The nurses check. They can’t hear her baby’s heartbeat. They check again. No heartbeat. And again. No heartbeat. Her baby has died and is still inside her. Then the labour pains start. She is in Balimo for a week and still the baby is inside her. Now her life is in danger and the nurses decide she needs to get to a doctor. She is moved back in the boat. It is raining and windy, and the river is choppy.

The bumpy journey takes an hour, and she is in pain. The nurses hold an umbrella over her to keep the rain off, but still she gets wet. Then the motor stops. They drift on the river while someone works to repair the motor.

They keep going and eventually arrive at Kawito. People lift her off the boat on a stretcher. They carry her up the steep embankment and to a plane. A crowd has gathered and people are watching her. They lift her onto the plane.

The plane bumps along the airstrip and then takes off. An hour and a half later they land at Rumginae. An ambulance meets the plane and she is finally taken to the hospital. The doctor does a caesarean. Mukusato’s life is saved, but there is her baby, with her hopes and dreams for it, lying dead.

MAF pilot Jason Marsh was the one to receive the medevac call.

A young boy, Naha, had suffered a snake bite in a village called Owena. This would be a difficult medevac as any presence of wind means they would not be able to land. It is one of the steepest (12.5% slope) and shortest strips (380m) our pilots go into so it is imperative the weather is co-operative.

Twenty minutes later, with the conditions favourable and the plane fuelled and ready, they took off for the 24-minute flight.

As they were flying, they were praying furiously that the little boy would be able to hang on until they were able to get him to a hospital and that the wind would remain calm and the airstrip clear for landing.

As they touched down and rumbled their way up to the top of the airstrip, people came from all directions to meet the plane. As quickly as possible, cargo was pulled off the plane that had been waiting in Goroka to go out to the people at Owena and the plane was made ready for the sick little boy and the carer who would be going with him.

As the preparations were made, they were able to briefly catch up with the missionary who has been working with the people in this area for nearly 30 years. Naha, the snake’s victim, cheated the usual outcome of a death adder’s bite. He was lucky that it struck his finger and therefore the poison did not make its way into the blood stream quickly.

For that reason and because MAF could respond so quickly, the little boy was able to be flown out to amain centre to receive successful treatment. Naha’s life was saved.

WARNING: This story contains disturbing content involving sexual assault.

Rose was beaten and raped while working in her vegetable garden near the village of Mount Tawa, Papua New Guinea. It took a team of MAF staff to ensure she received help. It started on a Friday, when Rose was attacked by two men from the neighbouring tribe. She dragged herself back to the village by nightfall, but Mount Tawa has no doctors, not even a community health worker. There was, however, a channel of communication – a CRMF (Christian Radio Missionary Fellowship) radio and an MAF agent who knew how to use it.

A medevac was quickly arranged and early Saturday morning Pilot Martin Koelher flew out to rescue Rose. They returned to Mt Hagen at 10am with Rose and her husband Rodney.

The ambulance wasn’t waiting at Mt Hagen airport so Pilot Martin drove Rose and Rodney to the hospital. Rose was cared for and recovered in Mt Hagen hospital. During this time, MAF wives Jennifer and Lois regularly visited and prayed with Rose.

This kind of horrific story – of brutality and sickening violence against women – is sadly told far too often in PNG. Women are vulnerable in this society and this kind of violence is at an epidemic.

Nikos had gone hunting many times before, but never had a wild pig retaliated.

We received the call that his his leg had been shattered and that he had a suspected broken back.

The team of Captain Irwin Hodder, First Officer Richie Axon and Ground Operations Manager Siobhain Dales were en route to visit the base in Tabubil in the Twin Otter when they were diverted north out of the mountains towards the remote airstrip of Blackwara.

There is no medical centre or aid post at Blackwara so his tribesmen were faced with a walk of several days to get medical help. Thankfully, Blackwara is a strip that MAF regularly serves and the diversion from the planned route was only minor. On the ground, the pilots and ground staff who happened to be on board quickly hooked up six seats to the side of the fuselage so the man’s bush material stretcher could be placed on the floor.

When he was strapped in, the Twin Otter headed for Tabubil where there is a well-equipped and staffed hospital for him to receive the treatment he needed.

An urgent call had come from Balimo Hospital asking for an immediate medevac.

But MAF pilot Markus Bischoff knew there was a big problem: Balimo airstrip was closed.

Two men had been out hunting in this swampy area, and as dusk descended Gawak’s friend mistook him for prey and accidentally speared him in the back! It wasn’t until the next morning that Gawak was taken to the hospital in Balimo, only to be told they did not have a doctor there. He would have to be urgently relocated to Kiunga Hospital.

But even an emergency flight with MAF posed serious risk, as blood and other fluids from the wound had collected in Gawak’s chest cavity, restricting his good lung from fully functioning. Once at high altitude, he would barely be able to breathe. His only option was to have minor surgery and drain his lung before he even took flight. The only doctor available who could perform this surgery was Dr Sharon, who was away visiting outstation clinics.

Markus re-routed his flight to pick up the doctor, who also brought Dorothy with her, a woman who was suffering from a tubal pregnancy which was close to rupturing.

After landing at Kawito – the nearest airstrip to Balimo – they waited for Gawak to arrive up the river by boat, along with another patient from the hospital. Abilo had suffered a knife stab wound and would also need to be transferred to Kiunga Hospital for treatment.

Finally, after performing the emergency surgery under the dilapidated roof of Kawito’s open air terminal, Dr Sharon and the three patients left for Kiunga. As it turned out, Dr. Sharon had to perform emergency surgery on Dorothy the next day, just as the fallopian tube burst. If Markus had not picked her up along the way, Dorothy would not have survived.

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