Emergency Medical Intervention Project

Flannery O’Connor once said: “The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it”.

Synopsis

The Central African Republic (CAR) is now in the 11th year of a civil war, which has caused a refugee crisis of nearly unprecedented proportions.   And now with the civil war taking place in neighboring Sudan there are many thousands more refugees fleeing the fighting there (which amounts to nothing less than genocide) and entering the CAR to find safety…only to land in the middle of a different civil war.  (It is analogous to jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire!) 

The CAR government is still trying to deal with the refugee crises of their own people caused by the CAR civil war. To date they have made very little progress.  Currently there are more than 1.4 million CAR residents (1/3 of the population) that have been displaced (left the country), and a great many of them went to Sudan, DR Congo, and other neighboring countries.  More than 500,000 have been internally displaced (still living in the CAR but homeless). And there are over 1.1 million people from the CAR that are at risk of statelessness. And of course there are several million innocent little kids suffering terribly in the midst of this human tragedy!

All of this unprecedented mayhem has caused the health care system in the CAR to completely and totally collapse.  Thousands of innocent men women and children are dying of preventable and treatable diseases.  It is a human tragedy of epic proportions and it is getting worse every day!

The CAR is ranked as the poorest nation on earth and one of the most dangerous places on earth.  It is also ranked and the worst place in the world to grow up as a child!  Please, let me say that again:  The CAR is ranked and the worst place in the world to grow up as a child!   

The CAR Emergency Medical Intervention Project (CAREMIP) is joint venture between Paradox Energy & Resource Group (PERG) and African Wildlife Initiative (AWI) a 501-C-3 nonprofit organization. 

CAREMIP’s team of medical professionals are highly experienced in treating sick, injured, and wounded patients in remote bush environments far from hospitals.  With our Forward Deployed Mobile Clinic (FDMC) we will be able to save countless lives.

Please take a few minutes to read the following story by Dr. Randy McKinney for a very interesting and entertaining look into this colossal humanitarian crisis.

2016

I was at home working at my desk when I heard the very distinct deep-throated rumble of our Dodge Cummins diesel pickup coming down our ¼ mile long driveway and pulling into our yard.  It was my wife Lana coming home from work.  

Most of the time when I worked it was away from home, usually for several months at a time.  And when I was at home I was looking for more work somewhere else…I worked in the security world and there was not a need for that where we lived….and that was a very good thing.

As she backed in next to our house, got out, and stepped up onto our porch I opened the front door for her.  As I closed the door behind her, I hugged her and gave her a big kiss.  And then I dropped my idea on her …..and not even in a remotely subtle way, but more like a ton of lead, because subtlety is not one of my strong suits.   I said: “Hey babe, I’ve got an idea.  Why don’t we sell everything we’ve got, and give the rest away and we’ll ride around the world on motorcycles treating kids with dysentery.”  Lana’s immediate response was: “I’m packed!!!”  I remember thinking “wow that was easy, except for the fact that she has never ridden a motorcycle by herself before!”

And that was the beginning of our 10-month motorcycle trip through 14 countries treating sick people.  But I need to back up a bit, actually quite a little bit, and bring you up to speed on how we had gotten to that point.

2009

It was that year that our security company was asked to come to the Democratic Republic of Congo in Africa (who are on friendly terms with the USA) to consult with their government on some security related matters. (And I am not talking about financial securities or cyber security).  That was our company’s business; it is what we did for a living.  We were very good at it and we have a stellar reputation.

 In preparation for this trip, Paul, our companies Director of African Affairs, and I spent and inordinate amount of time studying intelligence reports and meeting with intelligence sources about the Congo government’s particular concerns…and for our own interest we looked into the human atrocities and other problems taking place in that particular Sub-Saharan region.  So by the time we arrived in DRC we already had extensive knowledge of the security problems (and many other problems) in that nation and that region.  However, nothing opens a person’s eyes like a firsthand; boots on the ground look...................

After receiving our letters of invitation from that government, and other pertinent documents, we got on an airplane for a very long ride.  It was my first trip to Africa and Paul’s umpteen hundredth.  At that time he had over 35 years experience in Africa in many African countries, heavily involved in humanitarian relief missions and a number of anti-poaching operations having to do with both rhinos and elephants.  But this was his first time to this particular country.

Crossing the frontier (border crossing) in just about any African country can be a challenge at best or your worst nightmare….and about everything in between. 

(There are two Congo’s in Africa; the Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo.  These two nations are separated by the Congo River and its tributaries which is the second largest river drainage system in the world.  Both of these Congo’s are completely separate countries with separate governments.)

I flew out of our home state of Alaska and hooked up with Paul in Los Angeles.  We then flew from LAX to Frankfort, Germany and on to Paris where we got visas for the Republic of Congo.  And then finally to Brazzaville, the capital city of the Republic of Congo.

Although our final destination was Kinshasa, which is the capital city for the Democratic Republic of Congo, we chose to fly into Brazzaville first to meet with our intelligence sources there.  We needed some more information before we met with the government of DR Congo. 

Using our fixer in Brazzaville we were able to easily navigate the airport entry process and to get our visas for Kinshasa.  Several days later we picked up our DR Congo fixer and charted a small speedboat to cross the Congo River to the capital city of Kinshasa.  We chartered this boat because the ferry system is not only wholly unreliable, but it is very dangerous as well. They sink those ferries multiple times a year and most of the passengers are lost, many eaten by crocodiles.

 Let me tell you about fixers, you might not know what they are:  It is a person (whom you hopefully trust) that paves the way, as it were, for things to happen.  Depending on the type of fixer you have---what they specialize in--- they can make life much easier for you.  As an example, upon arrival in Brazzaville we cleared through the customs entry process at the airport in less than 30 minutes.  Without this fixer we would have been there for many, many hours.

When we landed at the dock in Kinshasa it quickly became obvious why so many ferry boats sink every year in Africa.  There were two ferry boats rafted together (tied together), and tied up to the dock.  The ferryboat that was closest to us had a very large hole in the side of the hull about 18 to 24 inches above the waterline.  The hole was about three feet in diameter and we could see the engine room inside.  By all outward appearances this ferry was not operable so they were using it at as a barge and towing it with the other ferry boat.  What could possibly go wrong?!

The dock in Kinshasa was teaming with activity.  People were swarming around everywhere.  About a hundred men were carrying freight on top of their heads from the dock to the two ferry boats rafted together for their 1,500 mile trip up river.  It was a constant stream of these guys moving close together at a dog trot going both directions, loaded and empty.  We had a hard time crossing this line of very hard working men.

There were many other people there, including people that had gotten off of the ferry that was tied to the dock, or a different one that had either come across the river from Brazzaville or down river from who knows where.  (It is impossible to go down river from Kinshasa because of the unrunable, and nearly unimaginable, class six rapids below the city).  All of these hundreds of people were trying to get through customs (cross the frontier) and into the Democratic Republic of Congo.  One group caught my eye.  There were five western people on three motorcycles, two women and three men.  They were riding adventure bikes (motorcycles set up for world travel over paved and bad dirt roads) loaded heavily with all types of equipment and supplies in their panniers, tank bags, and top packs on the back of their bikes.  They were wearing top-of-the-line adventure bike riding jackets, pants and helmets.   They had been there a long time and it looked as if they were going to be there a lot longer.  I remember looking at them with more than a just little envy in my heart thinking….  “They are very brave to ride adventure bikes across DR Congo, and who knows where else.  But wow!  What a great way to see the world, what an adventure!!  I wish that was Lana and me.”  (Lesson number one: Be careful of what you wish for.)

 At the docks we were met by government officials and in about 30 minutes we had cleared customs, with the help of a high ranking government official, and we were quickly whisked off to a government compound where we were to stay and have the meetings that were scheduled for us.  So we never got to see much of the city or any of the countryside until………

 After about seven days of intense nearly back to back meetings with high-level officials, some in the middle of the night, and having never left the compound, we took a badly needed break.  We were driven clear across the massive sprawling city of 17 million+ people and out into the bush so that we could see some wildlife.   

I still remember it, like it happened yesterday, the sights, the sounds, the smells……….and my broken heart.  I felt appalled, nearly sick to my stomach. 

I am a hard man, and like a lot of hard men (and some women) reading this, I have seen some things in my life that I never want to see again.  But as most people do we use some kind of a coping mechanism to deal with it.  Some are never able to deal with it so they suffer from PTSD, depression, and anxiety attacks.  And some, very sadly, commit suicide.  Some people resort to alcohol and drugs, be they prescription or illegal.  I have never used alcohol or drugs, even socially.  I have always used prayer, asking God to help me deal with the suffering and other bad stuff that I have seen and asking Him to show me how I can help to stop it….and that is by far the best, and the only real solution!!

But what I saw on that trip was way over the top of anything that Paul and I had ever seen.  We could not even imagine how any of this could have been allowed to get so far out of hand. Why didn’t some big name NGO (Non-Governmental Organization) have this on their “get it done” list and have boots on the ground here?

Now picture this: I grew up near the end of the road on a ranch.  We raised horses.  When I was a little kid, about 10 years old or so, a very small traveling circus came to the “big” town (about 400 people) near us, and for the first time I got to see elephants, three of them. Not only that but I got to ride one!!! I was the first one in line to climb up the steps to the platform where I slid off onto her neck, right behind her head. With those big ears coming back over my legs. I still remember the feeling of that sparse, stiff hair on her head. After the circus closed, my family and I were privileged to talk with the elephant handler and I got to pet that elephant for a long time. For that little kid, growing up on a ranch, light-years from Africa, or even a city zoo…….what a thrill that was!!! I was ready to trade my saddle horse off for an elephant.  And that was the start of my fascination with elephants.

And now there I was, traveling down a dirt road in the African bush, my world-class opportunity to see an elephant, and who knows what else, in the wild. I could hardly contain myself! I had my digital camera in hand and it was turned on. Boy was I ready. And do you know what wildlife we got to see??!!.......Nothing!!! Not a single wild animal of any kind. Not even a tweedy bird! Zilch, Nada. We might as well have been on the backside of the moon.

However, we did get to see something….but it was about as far from good as you could ever imagine in your worst nightmares.   In fact what we saw during this trip to the bush and in the capital city is what made me very upset, nearly sick to my stomach.  We saw the most unimaginable suffering of little kids.  And not just a few… but we saw many hundreds of them, and there were thousands more that we did not see.   We saw it in the bush and in the city.  Of course we saw more kids suffering in the city than in the bush because the population is bigger.  In fact we were told by government officials that there are an estimated 17 million people in Kinshasa. But they are all packed in so tightly that they have never been able to do an accurate census.

We were being chauffeured around by the president of that country’s “father” and he was driving a very nice, brand-new, Jeep Grand Wagoneer…top of the line with all of the bells and whistles.  At that time in Kinshasa there were no traffic lights, there were no traffic signs, no stop signs, and no yield signs…no traffic control whatsoever. The lanes were not marked; they just crowded as many vehicles on the pothole infested roads and streets as would fit from one side to the other.  It is kind of a free for all, like a mild case of bumper cars.  But every time that we got stopped---and we were stopped a lot--- because the traffic was too thick to move, all of these little kids would just materialize out of thin air.  Many appeared to be as young as two years old.  Sometimes there would be three or four kids and sometimes there would be 20.  But there were kids every time we got held up in traffic.  They would flood towards the nicer vehicles even in that bumper-to-bumper traffic with people leaning on their car horns, with hardly enough room for the kids to squeeze between the car bumpers or between the car doors. 

And without exception, every single child that came up to our vehicle would hold one hand out palm up and the other hand pointing into his mouth.  There were starving.  Some of these kids were so thin and emaciated it was truly scary to look at them.  There were so many of these kids like this, thousands and thousands of them in that city.  It was truly overwhelming to see.

And then the sea of tightly packed vehicle traffic would start moving again and it was if these little kids just vanished back into thin air.  I have no idea how these poor little kids kept from being crushed in the ensuing mayhem of vehicles.   I am quite sure that from time to time some were.

I remember one little boy in particular, maybe 5-7 years old.  I remember it like I just saw him five minutes ago.  He was sitting on the ground, leaning against a palm tree.  I’ve never seen anybody that thin in my life….not even in pictures.  It looked like his skin was very, very tightly shrink-wrapped to his skeleton.  He was wearing a pair of badly worn out shorts, and that was all.  You could see every single bone in his body through his skin.  He had the hundred yard stare going on with the far away, vacant look in his eyes which were sunken deep into his head.  There was no question in my mind that he would be dead by morning.  And then poof, he was out of sight as we were swept along amongst the blaring horns and exhaust fumes of thousands of cars and trucks.  That picture is forever written in my memory in indelible ink.…like a tattoo on my memory bank.

By the time we left that country and headed back to Paris and then home to LA (and then to Alaska for me) Paul and I both felt compelled to make a very significant contribution to stopping these child atrocities in Africa.  But first we had to find out the cause---or causes--- of this situation.  If you don’t treat the root cause of a problem it will never be overcome.  It is like taking aspirin for a headache…lack of aspirin in your blood steam is not the cause of headaches. Taking aspirin to stop a headache is only masking a symptom.  If lack of aspirin was the cause of a headache then you would have been born with aspirin in your blood stream….but you weren’t.

So in order for us to make a positive lasting difference with this heinous problem we had to determine the cause, the very root cause, and treat it. 

Now hold on for a minute, I know the cause of why children starve to death.  It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out….. It is lack of nutrition.  Just about anybody, even with a no education at all has that figured out….those starving little kids certainly knew.  The next questions that I am sure you have goes something like this… why is there a lack of food and nutrition for these kids?  Where are these kids’ parents?  Why are these children running around begging in the streets?  Why are their parents not feeding them?  Where did all these children come from?  Are they all from Kinshasa?  Or did they somehow wind up there from someplace else?  We had the same question that you do and we absolutely had to get firm answers for them because without that knowledge we would never be able to help them other than “taking aspirin for a headache”.  And that’s not what we are about.  We treat the causes of problems

So after a good deal of research, talking to some additional intelligence sources that we had in the region, and some people that we knew in Paris with close ties to the region, we discovered a couple of things.  One of the things we already knew, and which was confirmed to us, is that the vast majority of these kids truly are homeless.  Their parents have either been killed by rebels, or have died from AIDS, dysentery, malaria, or some other disease. These poor little kids are not just begging for some organized group…they are sick, starving, and alone.

Fast forward to 2016--2017

Remember the idea that I sprang on Lana when she got home from work, and she said “I’m packed”?

Lana and I rode our motorcycles from Alaska to Pennsylvania, to Toronto Canada, flew our motorcycles to Paris, rode trough France and Spain, crossed the Strait of Gibraltar on high speed ferry into Morocco and rode through 11 African countries treating people with many types of disease and injuries.  Several of these African countries were (and still are) on the US State Department “don’t go there for any reason” list

In April 2017 Lana and I spent nearly a month in Central African Republic, and we were there during a very bloody civil war (that is still going on today). The capital city of Bangui was, and still is, under UN martial law and it was patrolled 24/7 with Abrams Battle Tanks, light tanks, armored personnel carriers (APC’s) and truck loads of troops who’s primary battle weapon was a loaded RPG.  At night we would occasionally hear full automatic weapons fire…and sometimes during the day. 

There was a 12 PM curfew, and if you were caught out after curfew you were most likely shot in the street. It was (and still is) a dangerous place!

The ONLY part of the CAR that the government had any control over was the capital city of Bangui.  Everything else in the CAR (a country the size of Texas) was controlled by radical Islamic terrorist groups.  (And that is still true today)

I spent the last 10 days of our stay in CAR deep in Islamic terrorist held territory (read completely lawless) in the northern part of that country. 

In that part of the world there is no 911 to call, no CAR military presence, and no police. In fact there is no infrastructure of any kind, nothing! 

Two other men and I had flown from the capital city of Bangui to a small village called Bamingui.  Lana had remained behind in Bangui. From Bamingui we had to drive MANY kilometers through this terrorist held territory and it was far too dangerous to take Lana there by 4x4 vehicle over these dirt tracks….not because the roads are nearly impassible (she would have relished that adventure!)….but because of the very real threat from some very serious bad guys. 

 Much of that time that I spent in the northern part of the country was meeting with Wildlife Rangers and local villagers. I was also took part in a counter poaching patrols for several days trying to rescue sex slaves and child soldiers form the terrorist poaching organization that was in that area at the time. 

While there I saw people suffering from all kinds of illness and injuries.  We did not have enough room to carry sufficient medical supplies to treat everyone we came across.

​We then returned home to Alaska to raise funds to build a new Piper PA-18 Super Cub (airplane), to take back to the CAR for our next mission.  Our Super Cub was completed in 2020 and Lana and I financed over 90% of the build out of our own money, spending every dime we had. 

Present Day

I have been keeping close track of the geopolitical situation in the Central African Republic and the neighboring counties, and it is extremely tenuous at best.  The CAR government is still trying to deal with the refugee crises of their own people caused by the CAR civil war that has been ongoing since 2012 (11 years). To date they have made very little progress with the refugee crisis, or stopping the civil war.  Currently there are more than 1.4 million CAR residents (1/3 of the population) that have been displaced (left the country), and a great many of them went to Sudan, DR Congo, and other neighboring countries.  More than 500,000 have been internally displaced (still living in the CAR but homeless). And there are over 1.1 million people from the CAR that are at risk of statelessness. And of course there are several million innocent little kids suffering terribly in the midst of this human tragedy!

Right now neighboring Sudan is in a civil war and thousands of refugees are pouring out of the state of Darfur (Sudan) looking for peace and refuge in the CAR which is still embroiled in its own civil war.  The CAR is ranked as the poorest nation on earth and one of the most dangerous places on earth.  It is also ranked and the worst place in the world to grow up as a child!  Many of the CAR residents who had fled to Sudan during the CAR civil war have now been forced to flee Sudan back into the CAR!  (It is analogous to jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire!)  The CAR government is completely helpless in responding to this new refugee crisis in their own country.  That part of the CAR, the northeastern frontier (border) region with Sudan is completely lawless and very dangerous.  The area is under the total control of radical Islamic terrorist organizations.  It is rife with illegal arms trafficking and human trafficking.  I was in that region in 2017 and for me to say that it is dangerous…well…it has to be really bad! 

This headline from a 21 August 2023 article reads:  “Central African Republic: Health Emergency in Central African Republic Requires Urgent Response”  Here are a few excerpts from this article which is linked below:  At the beginning of 2023, Dr Sabio, a former MSF doctor (Doctors Without Borders) in the city of Bangassou, took over the management of the hospital (at Bakouma). It is meant to handle surgical complications in a volatile (war torn) area near Nzacko, in the northwestern part of the Mbomou prefecture. "For 12 years, not a single doctor was present here," he says. "The hospital was run by a health assistant. Well, when I say 'hospital', that's a big word. There is no electricity, no ambulance, and beds (are) without mattresses. When I arrived, there wasn't even a thermometer, blood pressure monitor, pulse oximeter, or glucometer. The pharmacy was empty, too," says Dr Sabio .~~~ "There are 18 of us running the hospital, but I'm the only one with medical training," says Dr Sabio. "Due to our limited technical resources, we can't meet the basic requirements of a hospital.” ~~~ Twenty-year-old Fanny was transferred from Bakouma, (to a hospital) 130 kilometers away, because Dr Louis-Marie Sabio and his team lacked the medicines and equipment needed to treat the wound on her back. ~~~  "Sometimes, I even have to refer patients without being able to stabilize them beforehand, unsure if they will survive. The other day, I had to make an emergency transfer of a baby to Bangassou by motorbike, as we don't have an ambulance. We couldn't stabilize him, and he died a few kilometers from here, on the motorbike," says Dr Sabio.    https://allafrica.com/stories/202308230033.html

The healthcare system in the Central African Republic (CAR) has completely collapsed do to the ongoing civil war there, and the refugees pouring into CAR from the current blood bath civil war going on in Sudan.  Many thousands of children and adults are dying needlessly.

So what does my next mission in Africa look like? I have decided to put my two medical degrees, my clinical experience, my experience in treating patients in austere environments, and my security experience operating in hostile theaters to work in the CAR.   I am going to ship our Super Cub, along with a 20 foot CONEX (shipping container) full of medical supplies, to the Central African Republic (CAR) and save some lives, a lot of lives.  I will use the Super Cub for MEDIVAC flights for patients who are able to set up in the back seat. I can fly them to the hospital in Bangui.  (With the Super Cub I could have probably saved that little baby boy mentioned above!).  I will also use it to access very remote bush areas, areas that take many days to drive to over nearly impassible dirt tracks at 5-10 mph.  And all of these “roads” are controlled by radical Islamic terrorist organizations that rob and kill everyone that passes by.  But the villages that are in the bush are where the biggest need for emergency medical care is.

In order to help facilitate this new mission African Wildlife Initiative has entered into a Joint Venture (JV) agreement with Paradox Energy & Resource Group (PERG).  We are calling this new mission the CAR Emergency Medical Intervention Project (CAREMIP). 

We are currently in direct negotiations with the CAR government, to run the CAR Emergency Medical Intervention Project in that country.  There is no question that they will invite us back to help save the lives of their people.

Please donate to help us save countless lives of innocent little kids and adults in the Central African Republic!  Together we can make can big impact in CAR!

“Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this; to visit orphans and widows in their trouble and keep oneself unspotted from the world.”  James 1:26

God Bless you in your decision to partner with us in saving innocent lives in the Central African Republic

Randy