Ambulance For Madikeri - True Story

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By a single determined effort of a unique person from Bristol U.K, a fully equipped Ambulance for Madikeri in Karnataka is becoming a reality soon. What made the young Lena Liambey from Bristol to pursue with a single determination to get an ambulance for a hospital in Madikeri in Karnataka, India? Read her own heart rendering story.

Lena Liambey
My partner (David) and I had arrived in Mumbai on the 6th of February 2007 and travelled south through Goa to Karnataka. Following a visit to Gokarna we had decided to visit Madikeri to explore the cardamom and coffee plantations and also to visit a nearby Buddhist settlement. We took a bus from Mangalore to Madikeri on the 22 February and arranged to go on a trek into the Abbey Falls area the following day.

This was organised through a small tourist office in Madikeri called Nisarga Tourism. The following morning we set off with a guide and trekked into the hills, admiring the beautiful scenery and learning from our guide about the plantations and surroundings. We stopped at the guide's small house in the forest at lunch time for a rest and some food that his wife had prepared for us.

In the afternoon we set off again to explore some more and particularly to see a certain tree that the guide had been telling us about that provided a juice that was drinkable. He was keen to show us how the juice was extracted from the tree as it involved quite a difficult and skilled procedure of climbing up the tall trunk with just a few cloths around the feet. So we arrived at a small place in the depth of the forest where we found 2 other men, who turned out to be the people who would show us the procedure up the tree. They led us down the side of the hill into a thick area of forest where one of the men started his way up the tree to gather the juice.

It was at this moment that David suddenly developed breathing problems. He was a healthy and energetic young man, so neither of us had any idea what the problem was. It was rather terrifying as we were so isolated and his situation got worse very quickly. He was not able to breathe and the guide decided to go to try and get help. About 10 minutes later David collapsed in front of me and was no longer breathing. I tried everything I could to resuscitate him, and the 2 local men tried to help too, but it was to no avail. They could not speak any English so the situation was very frightening and lonely for me.

It was nearly an hour before 'help' arrived, and when it did it wasn"t the ambulance I was hoping for, it was merely a jeep with an oxygen tank that no one knew how to use. By the time we got to the hospital it was too late and he was pronounced dead. There was then a power cut at the hospital and we were plunged into darkness. All of this made me realise how limited the resources were there. The entire hospital did not even have an ambulance.