A teenager who received an excruciatingly painful sting from the poisonous, transparent tentacles of a box jellyfish, was flown to hospital from a remote part of Arnhem Land, Australia in just 25 minutes – thanks to the Mission Aviation Fellowship.
By road, the tortuous journey from Nyinykay homeland to Gove would have taken about three hours – assuming that the rough bush tracks could be traversed without trouble or, during the rainy season, flooding.
According to pilot James Gullett: “The teenage girl had been in severe distress, rolling on the floor in immense pain. It was very shocking to those that witnessed it. Thankfully, her body made it through without experiencing cardiac arrest and, when I got there, she was able to walk, despite experiencing pain.”
Reservations Officer Imogen Caudell received the call for help at 3pm, and Gullett’s plane reached the girl’s homeland by 3:35. The short flight from hard-to-access Nyinykay to Gove Airport enabled the teenager and her escorts to reach the hospital there safely and without incident.
The Aboriginal Yolngu note that, thanks to the “can-do” attitude of MAF’s pilots and personnel, the organisation’s presence in Australia’s vast, sparsely populated Northern Territory not only continues to aid education, evangelism and discipleship, but remains a very real help in times of trouble.
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