This is my first official blog post of this outreach! I arrived on the Africa Mercy, which is currently docked in Sierra Leone, West Africa on Saturday night. We were supposed to arrive on Friday night, but got delayed in Brussels due to the fact the airline didn't want to send a half-empty plane to Africa. They decided to combine us with another flight the next day, but fortunately for us, they really started the trip off nicely. There were about 30 crew members scheduled to be on this flight and all of us were taken to a nice hotel, given great buffet meals, and the airline gave us EACH $840 for our inconvenience. What a fantastic way to begin!

Within days of such a great beginning came much sadness and a day I will never forget. At the start of each outreach, when the ship arrives into the designated country, there is always a massive screening of patients. They know about the screening's location and time by radio and word of mouth. There are many people with untreated medical conditions here, so there is never a lack of patients for us. The people stand in line, are sent to whatever surgical speciality is appropriate, and then decisions are made to determine if they will get surgery. We arrived into Freetown's football stadium on Monday morning at 6 a.m. to see a line already forming outside the gates. Most of the crew was somehow involved with the screening and things seemed to be getting organized pretty quickly. I am on the Ortho team, comprised currently of 3 surgeons, 2 other PTs, and a coordinator. Several of us had done screening before, so we were prepared for the normal flood of patients that come in at once and overwhelm the room. A few trickled in here and there, but there was never anyone waiting to see us. A few hours went by and although we heard a little yelling outside, we were unable to really see the crowds from where we were positioned. We were soon told that a few people in the crowd were getting outraged that they weren't opening the gates and allowing everyone to come in at once. There were thousands of people there and that would've caused hysteria, so they were letting them in at a manageable speed. At one point, from what we've been told, a few men caused the crowd to become unruly and it turned into a full-fledged riot. The crowd began to storm the entry gate. The people were so desperate to be seen that they began climbing up each other to get over the high fence. The security team tried to keep things calm and many crew members tried to build a human chain to allow a limited number of people to get in as the gate was partially opened in efforts to settle the crowd. As the single gate opened, the crowds pushed, shoved, and trampled each other to get through. As a result of this madness, 14 people were carried in either bleeding, collapsed, or unconscious- all requiring immediate medical attention. One man lost his life as a result of the chaos. After the injured were cared for, there was an emergency evacuation of all of the staff. We drove away with sad, angry, and confused eyes watching us.

This has been a trying week and one that has been full of prayer- not only for the families of those injured or the man killed, but for all of those who innocently waited in line and were unable to be given hope. The security team is working to determine how we will proceed at this point.

The ortho team begins adult and pediatric surgeries next week and we already have a pretty full caseload due to screenings that were done in other parts of the country several months ago. This has definitely started out in a shocking way, but I'm excited to see how God puts his fingerprints on the rest of this outreach!