Mrs A’s Story

Mrs A was working in from a cafe recently when she was suddenly knocked out cold. When she came to, it took her several minutes to find her bearings. Her body ached all over, her mouth was dry, her chest hurt so bad, she tried to sit up but someone prevented her. She was grateful for that actually because the movement had sent sharp pangs throughout her body. She wondered what was going on. What had happened to her? She vaguely heard someone whisper, easy. It sounded like her husband.

She attempted some minutes later to change her position to a more comfortable one and realised she couldn’t move her leg. Now, her panic was rising.  She saw her husband sitting to her left looking at her anxiously and asked him what had happened. It was then she learnt that the building she was in had collapsed and rendered her unconscious, broken the bones in her leg in multiple places and leaving several others injured, hers being the most severe of the injuries, by far. Her husband said the doctors though she would need surgery.

Mrs A tried to wrap her head around this information for a full minute and then started crying as the realisation hit her. This means she wouldn’t be able to walk till the surgery is done and even then, not immediately.

Her husband went on to explain the best place to get the surgery done will be in another city. Her injuries were beyond the capacity of the hospitals in the area and the neighbouring towns as well. She couldn’t go by road because she had to be as still as possible, because of the nature of her injuries. Also, it would take nothing less than 5 hours and her pain will be heightened by the tiniest bump on the road.

The only choice was to go by air. It would get her to the specialist service she requires, do so in the least possible amount of time, not more than 30 minutes and in comfortable circumstances.

And that is how Flying Doctors Nigeria got an emergency call to transfer Mrs A from her town to Lagos for orthopaedic care. She woke up and was in a city miles away in less than an hour, to get the help that she very much needed to walk again.

*Names, places and sequence of events in this article have been modified to protect the privacy of actual individuals.

Here are some more reasons for specialist air ambulance transfer in Nigeria and the rest of West Africa. To view how air ambulance across Africa has been made affordable through air ambulance/Medevac cover, click on this article Become a Flying Doctors member.

For more information on the life-saving services that Flying Doctors renders, visit our website at www.flyingdoctorsnigeria.com. Send us an email at sales@flyingdoctorsnigeria.com