Field Journal-by Lori Macklin

January 18 2007

Abelines , El Salvador

The day began with one of our best visits ever in Abelines. Our group of five left the capital of San Salvador at 6:00am, with Peter driving the Nissan Patrol, Absalon along on his first visit to Abelines to film interviews with community members, Doris from Enlace, Patty visiting from OCWC, and Lori (formerly with Enlace) visiting from the States. As we arrived in the community around 9:30am, under brilliant sunshine and beautiful blue skies, we came upon and greeted the builders hard at work on the new clinic/community meeting room expansion. It was an absolute thrill to see this dream, which the health committee has had for so many years, becoming a reality before our eyes. Dra. Mireia was attending to patients inside the existing clinic, where we greeted her before heading up the road on foot to Tingo and Reina Amaya’s home, where World Vision staff were distributing school supply packets to their sponsored children. There, Peter and Absalon filmed an interview with Dalila, while others visited with friends and health committee members who were waiting in the line that wrapped around the yard.

Peter and Absalon continued with their interviews, in locations across the road from the Amaya home, down by the river, and back at the clinic worksite. Pastor Victorio, Blanca, Elena, Beto and Isabel each shared their thoughts on how their collaboration with Enlace over the past seven years has changed the community, and their lives personally. There was an incredible sense of camaraderie as each person shared about how Abelines had been transformed through the partnership of the church and Enlace – with examples of improved public health, community cooperation, and even the growth of their own self esteem. As the filming was going on, Hilda, the engineer, and Amy, a volunteer with A-Brazo, arrived in Amy’s Honda CR-V. We had tried for days to figure out a way to make this day trip in just one vehicle, but there were just too many people, with Mireia planning to return with Peter, and Don Manuel, the foreman on site, needing a ride back too. Hilda and Amy had come up to check on the progress of the clinic expansion with Don Manuel, and to take photos of this phase of the construction. This was only Amy’s second time driving to Abelines, and they accidentally made a wrong turn, going through el Zungano on the way in instead arriving via the regular route. They arrived at around 12:15pm.

At about 1:00pm, Fide, Pastor Victorio’s wife, had prepared a delicious chicken and vegetable soup and fresh tortillas for us. We enjoyed talking and laughing together over lunch, and afterwards Peter, with Absalom filming, interviewed Mireia about her work with the community. When they finished, we started to prepare to leave, saying our goodbyes. Peter got into the driver’s seat of the Nissan, with Patty in the front passenger seat (where Absalon had been in the morning). In the back seat, Absalon sat directly behind Peter, with Doris next to him on the passenger side. Mireia sat in the way back seat. The other group was originally planning to stay longer, but Hilda decided it was best to leave together, and told Don Manuel to hurry up and finish what he needed to do. He went to the work site and gathered some tools he needed to bring back with him. Amy was preparing to drive the Honda, with Lori in the front passenger seat, and Hilda, Don Manuel, and Dalila in the back. (Dalila is a local girl from Abelines, and had asked if she could get a ride with us down to the main road – she was going to visit her boyfriend, who is a nurse at the hospital in Ciudad Barrios. She was going to get into the back seat of the Nissan, but then told Doris that she wanted to ride with Lori, and ran over and got into the Honda instead). We set out around 2:00pm for the 4x4 drive down the mountain, with the Nissan in the lead, and the Honda following.

In the Nissan, about halfway down the road (maybe 20 minutes) out of Abelines, Patty remembers the two driver’s side windows suddenly shattering, and a sound of “Pop pop pop pop!!” Her first thought was that they’d hit a land mine, and she looked around, stunned. She remembers the noise continuing, and seeing sporadic clouds of dust rising up from the ground. She knew they needed to get out of the car, but was momentarily unable to move. Behind her, Doris knew they were shots being fired, and told them all to get down. Absalon was wearing headphones, and didn’t hear her, or the shots, so she physically pulled him down in the seat. Peter had his hand on his neck, and said, in a gravely voice, “I’ve been shot”. They all quickly made their way out of the vehicle, using the passenger side doors – Peter pulled himself across the front, blood dripping onto the passenger seat as he climbed out the right side door. They all got themselves down on the side of the vehicle, not knowing if the shooting would continue, terrified of what might happen next.

In the second vehicle, we had pulled to a stop briefly where the road divides between Cirigual and Pajigua, as Don Manuel was used to taking the Pajigua road. We decided to go straight, knowing that was the more regular route. We had just been wondering aloud if the Nissan was in front of us or behind us, knowing that they had planned a quick stop at Victorio’s house to pick up Mireia’s backpack. Then we turned a corner and saw a sight none of us will ever forget. The Nissan was stopped on the road in front of us, with all of the passengers on the ground to the right of the vehicle. Peter was on his knees, facing us with blood all over his shirt, neck and hands, his eyes wide as he clutched his throat, gasping deeply for breath. The sound was horrible, like a deep wheezing, as he was struggling desperately to breathe. Mireia was bent over him, hands pressed to his neck. To their right, Doris was also on her knees, facing them from a few feet behind, crouched forward and grasping at her arms and shoulders. She was sobbing hysterically. Patty was down on the ground near her, and Absalon was on the ground near the back seat. All of us in our car, in that first split second, couldn’t fathom what had happened – what could have possibly happened – in such a short amount of time, to create the horrific, confounding scene in front of us. The Nissan appeared undamaged, and was on level ground, so it hadn’t been an accident. Had the windshield shattered? Did Peter have a piece of glass in his neck? As our car came to a bumping halt, both Amy and Lori jumped out of the front seat and ran toward them, thinking that Doris, and possibly others, were wounded too. When Doris saw us she screamed, “BAHATE, BAHATE!! TIRAN BALAZOS!!!” (GET DOWN; GET DOWN!! THEY’RE SHOOTING!!!”) Amy remembers hearing Peter gurgle, “I’ve been shot”.

As we dove down behind the vehicles, Manuel, Dalila and Hilda crouched down on the back seat and on the floor of the Honda. All of us, down low, knew that we had to get out of there FAST, to get Peter to the hospital as quickly as possible, as the reality of his condition, and our distance from the hospital, felt like an unbearable weight. We could hear Don Manuel yelling, “Rapido; RAPIDO!!” None of us clearly remember getting back into the vehicles, but Mireia and Peter got into the back seat of the Nissan, Absalon crawled across the front to the driver’s side, and Patty got into the front passenger seat. Sitting in the seat covered with shattered glass from the windows, and never before having driven a 4x4 vehicle, Absalon took off flying down the road. Amy ran back and got into the driver’s seat of the Honda, and Doris had jumped into the back of the Honda to make room for Peter in the first vehicle. In the midst of the scramble, Don Manuel said to Amy in a steady voice, “Keep calm, Amy – we need you to drive”. She quickly sped us out of there following the Nissan. The rest of us were still ducked down, but she and Absalom couldn’t. We were all concerned, praying for their safety getting out of there. In our crouched positions, we were all already praying out loud for Peter, and Doris was in the back seat, sobbing hysterically, her hands shaking violently as she tried to dial Alfredo’s number. When he answered, she started to cry even harder, choking out that Peter had been shot. Her voice was frantic as she told him where we were, and that we were on our way to the hospital. Next to her, Dalila was already on the phone with the hospital in Ciudad Barrios, telling them in a loud, urgent voice that we were on our way. Then she called Pastor Victorio to tell him what had happened, and where we were. The whole trip down the mountain, we were all crying, trembling and praying - individually and as a group, out loud and all at once, pleading to God that He would somehow get Peter to the hospital on time and let him survive. In the midst of the prayers, Doris kept sobbing, “no puede ser, no puede ser”; and Dalila was continually rocking and repeating, “Ayyy, no, ayyy, no. Pobre Pedro, pobre Pedro”. We all knew, because of what we saw and where we were, that his chances were slim, and the anxiety in the car was unbearable. But we never stopped praying and standing together on the chance of a miracle, trying to beat back the dread of what we were all afraid of. We begged God not to let that happen to Dara and their kids. Because of the terrain, we couldn’t see the Nissan in front of us, and we had no idea what condition Peter would be in by the time we reached the hospital in Ciudad Barrios, about 20 minutes away.

When we reached the turnoff to the paved road that leads to Barrios, Absalon came to a stop in front of us, and we had that sinking feeling that something terrible had happened. We didn’t know it at the time, but he was trying to get the car out of four-wheel drive (with, as we found out later, Peter calmly giving him instructions). In a matter of seconds, we all took off down the road and tore into Barrios, where the hospital is in the furthest possible corner of the town. When we were almost there, we saw the Nissan turn a corner up ahead, and could see that Peter was sitting upright and appeared to be conscious, with Mireia right next to him. There was a collective exhalation of huge relief, but we knew that he still wasn’t out of the woods, especially knowing the limited resources of this hospital. We pulled up to the ER just as he was being helped onto a stretcher and wheeled inside. Hospital staff surrounded us, and one woman immediately suggested a helicopter, which we obviously agreed was necessary, and as quickly as possible. Discussions about logistics began with the hospital administrator and other staff, with at least eight people deciding out loud (and all seemingly differently) where he should be taken. Doris was immediately on the phone with Enlace to get the logistics started. All of us were still shaking, shocked, and trying to stay out of the way, but wanting to know how Peter was doing. Peeking into the room from the hallway, we could see that he was conscious and calm, but his breathing was still strained as they took him away for x-rays. Back outside, just a few steps away from the ER, Patty prayed an amazingly calming prayer with Doris and Lori, for Peter’s survival, Dara’s strength, and for a miraculous outcome. Hilda was a few steps away, on the phone with different agencies of the Red de Mision Integral, asking them to start praying. Dalila was on the phone with Abelines, and Doris was making regular calls to Enlace to deal with the logistics and give them updates. Don Manuel was in the back parking lot, guarding the vehicles and calling the workers on the clinic site in Abelines to tell them what had occurred. They, in turn, called their home community of Tinteral, to have them start praying as well.

When we went back inside, from the hallway we could see the doctor in the room having Peter move his legs, which was a reassuring sign that he hadn’t sustained any spinal cord damage. He was “stable” and his neck was bandaged with gauze, but it was clearly painful for him to swallow – his eyes got wide every time he did. Mireia and the hospital doctor were with in the room with him when the rad tech came out to show us his films. As he held them up to the sun, the angle of one x-ray made it look almost like the bullet had been swallowed. It was surreal.

The police then summoned everyone who had been in the front vehicle to the back parking lot where it was now parked, so that each person could give his or her name and also tell of anything specific he or she had witnessed. Mireia had already given her testimony to an officer in the hallway. Lori went with Patty in case she needed a translator. It was the first time we’d all gotten a close-up look at the car. There were bullet holes in the driver’s door, the window frame, and the back left corner. Both of the windows on the driver’s side were shattered. There was glass all over the front and back seats, and blood in the front, especially on the passenger seat where Peter had crawled across. Looking at the damage, and the placement of the bullet holes, we all were amazed that no one else in the vehicle had been hit.

Realizing we were all by the car, Lori ran back inside to check on Peter. He waved her into the room, saying, “they keep asking me questions”. The doctors asked if he had allergies to any medications, any pre-existing conditions, and when his last meal was. Peter then looked at Lori and asked, “is it still in me?” She told him that it was, but that arrangements were being made to have him airlifted to a trauma center. He said that he wanted to go to Diagnostico in San Salvador, which is what we all wanted, but the doctors and administrators were at that point set on the “Tercer Brigada” of the hospital in San Miguel, which is much closer. Lori told him that she would tell the doctors that he preferred to go to Diagnostico, if that was a possibility. She told him how impressed she was with his calm, and he said (calmly), “What else am I going to do?” He was quiet, and then said, “I’ve always wondered what it would feel like to think I was going to die”. The truth was, we all knew how close he had come, and how miraculous it was that he had never lost consciousness, that he was lying there speaking, and amazingly, concerned about everyone else.

After the location of the bullet, Peter’s immediate concern was about how Dara would find out that he’d been shot. He wanted Ron to be the one to tell her, and asked Lori to call & make sure that he went to their house and told her in person. He was very concerned about Dara finding out over the phone. Lori went outside to call Ron, while Peter talked to Amy about calling his pastor, Brian, in the U.S. Lori came back into the room and assured him that she’d gotten ahold of Ron. Peter then asked, “How are you doing?” She said she was ok, but concerned about some of the others. Absalon was in the hallway, where Mireia was cleaning the cuts on his elbow, which he’d used to break the shattered glass out of the window. Pastor Victorio arrived, and he & Peter exchanged a hand-slap handshake over the bed. Victorio prayer over him, and when he was finished, Peter thanked him, and then told him that he should have just climbed on his back and had him carry him to the hospital in San Salvador, for the amount of time it was taking the helicopter to arrive.

We were all so worried about him, but Peter was practical the whole time, concerned about details like transferring all of the valuable video and camera equipment into Amy’s car. We smiled incredulously that he was concerned about that, lying there with a bullet in his neck. He said, “No, I’m serious”, and we felt sufficiently scolded. Amy went out to the parking lot, where Manuel had been guarding it, to move the equipment into her car.

Thank God for those moments of humor that broke the tension. Doris came back in, and Peter asked Lori to tell her about the tattoo idea. She did, and Doris half-smiled, but then started to cry again. Patty prayed another amazing prayer with us, around Peter’s bed. We were all trying to present a calm front to him, which, in retrospect, we probably didn’t do very well. There was a lot of quiet, as we tried to keep him from talking and further straining his throat, but all the while, we were afraid of the time elapsing, and kept asking him how he was doing. In response, he would give us the thumbs up, or a “mas o menos” gesture. At one point, the nurse (Dalila’s boyfriend) turned up his oxygen too high, which made his breathing more difficult. He corrected it, then tried exchanging the tube for a mask, which appeared to be sized for a child, and actually made his breathing worse. Peter asked for the tube back, so he switched it, all the time pushing Peter’s head around and talking to him as if he were deaf.

The “bed” Peter was on looked like a metal tray with two old exercise mats on it, which he kept sticking to. All he had was an IV drip and oxygen in his nose. There was no heart monitor to keep an eye on his blood pressure. When another nurse came back and checked it (one time) it was 140/100, and his pulse was 86. That seemed high for him, but not in a danger zone, but we were afraid of something changing. Was he bleeding internally? What if his blood pressure crashed? What if his airway constricted, and he suddenly wasn’t able to swallow? Were there any supplies, or staff, in this room to deal with that? At his bedside, every time Doris held his hand, she would use two fingers to clandestinely take his pulse, as Lori kept an eye on his stomach to monitor his breathing, and also on his expression when he swallowed, to see if it was becoming more difficult. Every couple of minutes one of us, or Amy, would help him spit into a small trashcan, then Doris found some packets of clean gauze, which she would hold to his mouth as he spit out blood and saliva. When Peter started to feel something different, such as when he said he felt like there was liquid entering his chest, or when his eyes got wide and his swallowing became more strained, the doctors were calm to the point of being aloof, almost cavalier, saying that he was fine. We kept wondering, “But how do you know that?” Peter wanted to know how long he could stay in that condition, with the bullet still in him. The doctors said that if he had excessively internal bleeding, his throat would be showing visible signs of swelling. Lori went into the hallway to find the nurse (with the braid in her grayish blonde hair) who seemed to be the only one with a sense of urgency. She came in and checked on Peter, and said he was stable, but again reminded him, and us, of how important it was for him not to talk. She was growing increasingly concerned about getting him to the hospital in San Salvador.

The logistical arrangements had become unbearable by this point. Throughout the wait, we were constantly being told that the helicopter would be there in 20 minutes, but each time the time elapsed, it seemed like the plan was changed and there was another 20 minutes in front of us. We were taking turns going outside to check on what was happening with the logistics, getting updated on where the helicopter was going to take him, and where it was going to land to pick him up, which changed at least three times. Each period of time felt like an eternity, and it was painful to have to keep telling Peter that that he’d have to wait yet again. Finally, we were told definitively that the helicopter would be landing at 5:00pm. We all looked up at the clock in his room, which said 4:22. It was agonizing – another 40 minutes?? But then we realized the clock was wrong, and it was really 4:43. Outside, Doris was the first one to hear the chopper blades in the distance, and we heard it come closer and then circle around. Even after it finally landed, we had to wait another ten minutes, as they were concerned about letting the dust settle first. It was excruciating. Finally, Peter was clumsily loaded into the ambulance, with Amy taking photos (at his request). Mireia got in also, as she was going with him on the helicopter (she and Doris had raided the drawers and cabinets in his room, filling a box with gloves, gauze, and other supplies, in case she needed them en route).

We all ran to the cars to follow them to the rendezvous point, except for Absalon, who insisted on staying behind with the Nissan to wait for the detectives to do their report. He planned to drive it back to San Salvador when they were finished. Again, we found ourselves racing through Barrios, with Dalila riding in the truck with Victorio up ahead. We pulled into a coffee processing plant, where Amy and Doris, along with Victorio and Dalila, ran through drying coffee beans, up a ramp, through a soccer field (with a game in play), and into another yard to see the helicopter take off (Patty and Lori stayed behind with Hilda and Don Manuel, who wasn’t letting the car - or the camera equipment - out of his sight). Amy took photos of the helicopter liftoff, then they came back to the car and we started to head back to the capital.

There was a huge sense of relief that Peter was finally on his way to Hospital Diagnostico in San Salvador, where we knew a neurosurgeon was awaiting his arrival. It felt like a collective adrenaline dip after everything that had happened, as we all were quiet in the car. When we gotten about 15 minutes outside of Barrios when we saw Victorio’s truck stopped ahead of us, with Dalila hanging out the window, waving us down. What now? Had something happened? Dalila yelled out that they’d just gotten off the phone with Alfredo, and that we needed to go back and get Absalon, because he was blind in one eye, and couldn’t drive at night. (What??) We couldn’t believe it, as we were all already amazed by the existing conditions under which he’d driven Peter to the hospital – it was almost unbelievable. So, we turned around and drove back to the hospital, where the detectives had arrived and were going over the vehicle. They insisted that we take everything out of it, which we already had, except for a big bottle of water. But we didn’t have room for it - Patty, Doris and Hilda were already in the back seat, Don Manuel was in the cargo area with the camera equipment and a bag of clothes for a pillow, and we still needed to get Absalon into the car (Doris offered to put Hilda on her lap, saying it was her punishment for teasing her about needing to eat more tortillas at lunch. Absalon walked over to the Honda and asked, “Um, by any chance, did anyone find my headphones?” Funnily enough, we had, knowing that he’d be looking for them). The four of them squeezed in side by side, taking turns sitting forward to make room in the seat. It was a quiet drive home, as we didn’t leave Barrios until after 6pm. We were all exhausted and lost in thought. Amy had Peter’s cell phone, and called his pastor Brian in the U.S. when we got the update that he had landed safely and was being prepped for surgery at Diagnostico. Jamie Huff called from the U.S., to get any information he could. There were other phone calls going on periodically – people from Abelines were calling to find out what was going on, Hilda was checking in with Raul, and Doris talked to Alfredo, who was at the hospital when Peter arrived.

We finally arrived in San Salvador around 9pm, and headed straight to Hospital Diagnostico. When we walked in and asked about Peter, they sent us up to the OR waiting room on the 3^rd floor, but no one was there. We looked in the chapel, and in another chapel on a different floor, and were practically ready to walk into the operating room ourselves when Doris called Ron to find out where everyone was. They weren’t coming back for a while, and Peter wasn’t scheduled to come out of surgery for a few hours, so we decided to await word at home. Raul had come to the hospital to pick up Hilda, and we joked that Don Manuel had resigned his position at A-Brazo and took off running, never to be seen by any of us again (he actually lives in Escalon – they gave him a ride home). We took Patty to the DeSoto’s house where she’d been staying, and talked briefly with David McGee, but we were all spent, and worried about reliving the details with Dara, who was upstairs with the kids. We knew she’d gotten to see Peter before he went into surgery, and was heading back to the hospital to be there when he came out. After a few minutes, we left for Enlace’s office, where Doris and Absalon had left their cars that morning. When we pulled up, Mireia came outside – she was there alone, besides the security guard, and had left her backpack and bag in our car, so she didn’t have any money for the bus. Amy insisted that we drive her home, as by this time it was about 10:00pm. We all hugged Doris and Absalon, who got in their cars and drove home. On the way to Santa Tecla, Mireia told us about the helicopter ride, and how there hadn’t been any doors so she couldn’t see a thing because her hair was flying in her face, but that Peter had remained stable the whole way. She told us about arriving at the hospital, how long Peter’s surgery would take, and that his prognosis was good. We were so grateful, and after dropping Mireia off, we finally headed home.