While lying in my bunk, as I could not sleep anyway, I heard a faint warning bell go off and overheard the captain announce “we have a problem!” My friend Larry Hills came to me and said we are heading for shore and of course, I asked why!

What had happened was that the front cables that hold the front loading ramp had snapped on one side then the other and then both safety chains had also broken and water was rushing into the front of the boat. The captain headed for shore and ran the boat forward until the ramp began to drag bottom and at this point he turned the boat around and headed it as far as possible toward the beach, which was approximately 300 yards away. All this time the huge waves were hammering at the side of the boat.

As we were fighting to stay afloat, we saw the 50 P.E.T.S and everything else that would float pass by the boat. Once we got the boat securely on the sand then the boat became stable, which took several hours to accomplish, and we were not sure that we wouldn't capsize. It was a harrowing three hours and we were all wet and in the the dark. I thought it would never get daylight.

The ship was a complete wreck on the inside with almost all the glass knocked out and everything that was loose was on the floor. At one point I thought that we were going to have to jump off the boat into unknown waters and swim to shore. At approximately 9:00 am the next morning, a fisherman came out to check us out but the water was so rough that he could not get near our boat. About one hour later he came back and was able to get a rope to us. It was so rough that we had to jump into the water and swim to the rescue boat. We all made it to the boat OK, except our doctor broke his leg jumping into the water. After we all left the boat the water got rougher. The water came into the boat and flooded the four big diesel engines. The boat now sits in a watery grave approximately 10 mile from where Christopher Columbus landed on his fourth voyage to the Americas. The province is called Gracias A Dios. When Columbus left he told the people thank you and good bye and thus the province was named this.

The boat and all the cargo was valued at approximately $100.000.00 but, yes, we will make another attempt to help these less fortunate people of this piece of land that stretches approximately 1000 miles along the Coast of Honduras and Nicaragua.

The next day after the mishap we chartered a small plane and flew out, with our film crew, to the area we had attempted to go to in the boat. We saw many people there who needed the P.E.T.s and also many children who did not have even one aspirin or band aid.

If we can come up with the funds, we will be shipping a 40 foot container of clinical supplies and 100 P.E.T.s on May 1, 2007 and 2 more later this year, or approximately 500 P.E.T.s. If you would like to help with medical supplies, money or prayer, we would welcome it. We need blankets, all kinds of clinical supplies, vitamins, band aids, gauze, tape, wood, working equipment for self help shop, 16 inch planer, joiner, hand tools. Contact us for more information.

The P.E.T.s cost $250.00 so if you would like to help by providing a P.E.T. or help pay the freight of $75.00 per P.E.T., or if your organization would like to join us on the project, please contact us.
THE MOSKITE INDIANS OF HUNDURAS
JANUARY, 2007

Georgia-based humanitarian organization, Corazon a Corazon, has teamed up with the P.E.T. Project and Alabama-based Missions Unlimited International to provide specialized wheelchairs to the injured divers of the Moskito Coast of Northern Honduras in Central America. These wheelchairs, called P.E.T.s (Personal Energy Transportation), are well adapted for conditions found in rural third world environments. P.E.T.s enable individuals to regain their mobility. These groups have decided to focus their efforts on an indigenous group of people whose needs have been largely ignored in the past.

In 2006, 25 of these specialized chairs were shipped to address this problem. Fifty more were sent for delivery in 2007, but that shipment met with a sea born disaster. A 42 year old Vietnam era landing craft had been used by one of the organizations for the prior 8 years. Age, salt water, rough seas combined and resulted in the loss of the vessel and its cargo of these 50 specialized chairs. Other relief supplies were also lost, although no loss of life or significant injury occurred.

On the Moskito Coast injured divers and their families anxiously awaited this cargo, and their opportunity to gain their mobility. Dis-spirited, but perhaps wiser, these groups are continuing in their efforts to address the problems of those men. This project is difficult but it is doable and the effort to provide for these men will continue.

An epidemic of crippling paralysis plagues Moskito Coast of Honduras. The bends, or decompression related illnesses affect virtually all Moskito men who are involved in the lobster diving industry. Since the introduction of SCUBA to the Moskito Coast in the early 1970's the lobster divers have been able to increase their yields by diving in deeper waters.

Diving deeper, and staying down longer with an absence of any real education or training in safe diving practices has resulted in this epidemic, affecting these unschooled indigenous people. Few employment opportunities exist in the Moskito Coast of Honduras or in Nicaragua. The prevalent source of employment is fishing and specifically lobster diving. Virtually all divers suffer from injuries related to this trade. Neurological injuries, primarily partial paralysis, or mild brain damage is evident along the length of the coast. Virtually no village has been left unaffected.

The Moskitos are the predominant ethnic group of northeastern Honduras and eastern Nicaragua. At one time they had their own nation, but that nation was carved up by the Honduran and Nicaraguan governments in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. And they were largely ignored until the fishing boom of the 60s and 70s. Virtually all divers for lobster are Moskitos. Once injured, there is no social safety net for these people. There is no disability, virtually no regulation and no corporate accountability for the injured divers.

Young men begin commercial diving as early as 15 years of age. On crowded boats, these divers may make as many as 15 dives a day to depths as much as 30 fathoms (or 180 feet). Virtually all injuries occur at depths over 100 feet and in areas with significant currents at those depths. The most productive lobster banks are found in those areas and there are no consequences to the boat captains or boat owners. The Moskitos Indians and the injuries they suffer are largely ignored. Estimates of crippled divers run as high as 1,000 men, though virtually all divers and former divers have injuries, some subtle and sight and some catastrophic. Numerous deaths occur every year.

Once injured, the diver is often near unconscious and paralyzed in the water. He is lifted our to the water, placed into his bunk and if he does not improve, sometimes he is transported by a small boat to the mainland, often 40 or 50 miles from the lobster banks. He needs decompression, but there are only two decompression chambers working in all of Honduras and by the time the diver finally arrives, the damage has been done.

For the injured diver, once home, he is dependent upon his wife and extended family for support. If his injuries are less serious and don't affect his upper body, he might be able to work as a cayucero or diver tender who follows the bubbles from the diver in a small open boat and prepared the next tank for the diver. For most divers, their injuries are too severe and no boat will employ them.

Solving this problem would require changes in diving practices that would reduce fishing yields and of course those changes encounter severe resistance from the well financed fishing lobby in both Honduras and Nicaragua. There has been a lack of any significant opposition to this lobby and an institutionalized apathy to the plight of the divers.

To learn more about the P.E.T. Project or P.E.T. wheelchairs, log on to www.giftofmobility.org. For morn information about Corazon a Corazon visit www.corazon-a-corazon.com , or to contact a representative of Missions Unlimited, send an email to missionsunlimited@charterinternet.com