Episode 15 - A good day to live

This week my good friend and colleague Ricky had a very serious asthma attack. So serious in fact, that he stopped breathing. Completely. One minute we were laughing and joking together, the next he’s being rushed to hospital. Now when I consider that last point, I realise how fortunate we are. You see unlike most of Papua New Guinea we have a hospital just five minutes down the road, If we had been in one of the remote villages or even just somewhere out of town, we would have been looking at hours or even days and Ricky would have been dead. But that was not our story and our good fortune did not end there. The four students who had come to CRMF to learn about solar and HF radio installation that week knew CPR, and were able to administer it straight away, otherwise Ricky might not have made even the five minutes to the hospital. But Ricky did make it to the hospital, yet even then the story was not over. The nurses who admitted Ricky did not know what to do for Ricky, and there were no doctors on site to help. Or were there?

Ricky and I digging a hole

Remember those four students who went with Ricky? Well they were all Doctors who served rural communities who had come to CRMF to learn technical skills to bring to those communities who wouldn't have access to any technical support otherwise. Once they explained who they were to the nurses, they started to take control and Ricky quickly got the medicine that he needed. With the quick response of the doctors and the prayers of everyone who knows Ricky, he made an exceptionally quick recovery and the next day I was already back to sharing the usual jokes and laughter with him. It really makes your head spin. How quickly things can fall apart, and how quickly they can come back together again. It has made us all stop and think. There is no doubt God was looking after Ricky and he receives all of our thanks and praises for that. It’s been a reminder to us all how fragile our lives are. It also reminds us how trustworthy He is, the one in whom all our lives rest.

The four Doctors (sounds like the name of a band...)