Mercy Workers Save Colleagues in Mexico Crash

Using a crucifix as a splint, hair bands as tourniquets and shredded T-shirts as bandages, a group of USC nursing students and a Lancaster eye doctor saved the lives of four colleagues whose plane had crashed on a medical mission in Mexico.

The crash occurred last weekend when one of four single-engine planes piloted by the Flying Doctors of Mercy struck electrical lines and smashed into rugged terrain in the northwestern state of Sinaloa.

What transpired was a harrowing race against death by the California volunteers--won with primitive, makeshift measures far removed from their high-tech training.

“We were all dirty, our shirts were torn, we had blood under our fingernails and on our face--it was like a total MASH unit,” USC nursing senior Rosie Romero, 22, said Tuesday. She was one of five students who made the trip to fulfill a volunteer work requirement in their community health class.

Instead of ambulances, they borrowed pickup trucks from local villagers and raced to the scene along dirt roads, crossing creeks and dodging livestock. A mayonnaise jar was used to collect urine specimens, a burlap sack served as a pillow and jagged wounds were cleaned with buckets of water.

By the time U.S. rescue crews arrived 10 hours later, it was dark. The tiny airport in El Fuerte had no radar or lights. Guided only by the headlamps of trucks that residents had parked around the runway, four Lear jets made daredevil landings and airlifted the injured to a trauma center in Tucson.

On Tuesday, the victims all were listed in fair condition with multiple fractures, cuts and bruises. Back in Los Angeles, the nursing students and the eye doctor were exhausted but relieved.

“It was a fabulous human experience,” said ophthalmologist Rulon Beesley.

Said 26-year-old USC senior Denise Greene: “We basically sat down afterward, had a couple of margaritas and said, ‘Whoa, what a day.’ ”

When the trip began Friday, the group had hoped to provide a range of medical services and supplies to the Mexican poor, including such basics as toothbrushes and toothpaste. For the volunteers of Liga International, a 66-year-old organization also known as Flying Doctors of Mercy, the trips are regular affairs in which they send as many as 25 planes a month south of the border.

Allen Clark, 38, an optician and pilot from Lancaster, had made the journey dozens of times, as had the three optometrists in his airplane. But as he was completing the last leg of the trip Saturday morning, from Guaymas to Choix, the craft’s wing snagged electrical wires and the plane plummeted upside-down to the ground.

“It was like, Oh my God, I know they’re going to be dead,” Romero recalled thinking as she viewed the wreckage from above.

The three other planes in the convoy landed on a dirt airstrip about 10 miles away, where residents of the tiny village were awaiting their arrival. The students, some of whom speak Spanish, explained what had happened and were off in a frantic, bumpy ride in the back of the villagers’ pickup trucks.

About 45 minutes later, they encountered their wounded colleagues, who had been pulled from the wreckage by town folk. Clark had a fractured pelvis, crushed kneecap, broken foot and a deep cut across his chin. The others--G. Clark Pierre of Lancaster, Susan Anderson of Santa Maria and Greg Kaiser of San Luis Obispo--had injuries ranging from dislocated shoulders to compound fractures. Most were bleeding profusely.

“It was really life and death,” said USC senior Amy Schmuecker, 27. “We just got in there and did the best we could.”

Beesley said he took off the brace he was wearing for a herniated disc and used it to immobilize one victim’s wrenched shoulder while the nursing students shredded their clothing for bandages, turning their T-shirts into tank tops.

Local residents gathered sticks and fence posts for splints. A hair band and the tubing from a stethoscope served as tourniquets. Some of the nursing students, who had split off to find medical supplies, showed up with a bag of IV solution and one needle--shared by the most critically injured.

“I had worked as a nurse before, but I never felt like a nurse until Saturday,” said USC senior Jill Houston, 26.

They put the injured in the backs of the pickups and traveled to the town’s primary clinic--little more than an empty shell of a building. They found gauze, masking tape and a wooden crucifix about six inches long that decorated the lobby.

“I was a little ambivalent about that, you know, being in a historically Catholic society,” said Elizabeth Hahn, 44, also a USC senior. “But we really didn’t have time to stop and say, ‘Excuse me, can I use your crucifix as a splint.’ ”

From the clinic, they transported the injured to the closest airfield in the town ambulance--an old Chevy van with a white cross hand-painted on the side. Between 6 and 10 p.m., as rescue crews from California and Arizona made four risky landings on the darkened runway, the students used flashlights to keep an eye on the victims, some of whom were still in shock and beginning to bleed internally.

Clark, the injured pilot, said in an interview from his hospital bed Tuesday that the only thing he recalled was reaching out his hand to one of the female students.

“I remember taking her hand and just holding it,” Clark said. “I didn’t know what was happening to me and I didn’t want to be alone.”

Beesley, in a note to the students’ teacher verifying that each had performed 16 hours of volunteer service, credited them with saving four lives. The students attributed their success to good training, a strong sense of teamwork and creative minds.

“It was a spiritual high the whole time,” Hahn said. “I think we’re all ready to go back.”