Week of Nov. 17 - 23, 2008

Dr. Larry Hashimoto
President 2008-09
Redondo Beach Rotary club

(REDONDO BEACH, Calif.) -- Stacy and I just returned from Baja, Mexico this past weekend where we did some volunteer work with the Flying Samaritans in Bahia de Los Angeles (Bahia).

Bahia is a very small fishing village on the Sea of Cortez in Baja with a population of about 500 residents. The Flying Samaritans are composed of medical professionals, volunteers and pilots that donate their time for the people of Mexico.

In Bahia, the Flying Samaritans have a small clinic that provide medical and dental procedures, as well as a small pharmacy. Over the weekend, I was told of a story of how Rotary helped a family of a beautiful 9 year old girl from just outside of Bahia.

This little girl was born with a congenital heart defect and was told by pediatric cardiologists in Tijuana and Ensenada that she required a pacemaker ASAP. The family did not have the funds for the $4000 surgery, not including the pacemaker, since like most families in Bahia, they live on very modest means. Tom Brennan, who is the coordinator of the clinic in Bahia, got word of this little girl and was able to get the surgery done at no charge to the family. He got Medtronics in Minneapolis to donate the $5000 pacemaker, $2000 from the Flying Samaritan and $2000 from LEGA, another philantropic humanitarian group.

So, on October 29th, Flying Samaritans Bob Cucovatz and Tom Brennan transported the 9 year old girl and her parents from Bahia to Ciudad Obregan, where Dr. Aguilar, a Mexican pediatric cardiologist, performed the surgery to implant the pacemaker. On the air strip in Bahia, family and relatives of the little girl greeted the pilots before they embarked on this life-altering journey to Ciudad Obregon. At the other end, Dr. Aguilar waited for the arrival of the little girl, and the family was hosted by the local Rotary club for the week, while the girl recovered from the surgery.

     

Flying Smaritan pilots Tom Brennan and Bob Cucovatz,
surgeon Dr. Aguilar, the 9 year old patient and her family.

On November 5th, the pilots transported the family back to Bahia. The surgery was a success and she should now have a normal life. This was just another example on how Rotary is helping out children of the world to "Make Dreams Real", even in very remote areas where Rotary does not exist.  -- Larry