Ham radio operators tune in hurricane help

CSMonitor reported Richard Webb, an amateur radio operator, was asleep on his air mattress at University Hospital in New Orleans during the aftermath of hurricane Katrina when he was awakened at 5 a.m. by a hospital administrator.

I was wondering when a news story about Ham radio operators would finally surface. Amateur Radio Operators are almost always on the front line of providing communication in areas hit by various natural disasters that disable local telephone, cell phone, radio, tv, and other commercial communication services.

As Mr. Webb tells it, "He told me we had a lady who was in labor, who had swum five blocks in that dirty, nasty water to the hospital because she saw lights there - people with flashlights moving around." Medical personnel said the baby needed to be delivered by caesarean section. But the hospital had limited power, no running water, no way to sterilize instruments, no way to perform such surgery. "We figured we had two hours to get her medevacked out of there" before the lives of mother and child would be in danger. "So I got on the radio and was talking to a fellow who was with the Coast Guard auxiliary in Cleveland, Ohio. I was working with him to arrange a medevac." Choppers did arrive in time, Webb says. The woman and another patient in need were evacuated successfully. Because the hospital had no landing pad, the two had to be lifted out in baskets lowered from the helicopters.