Samson (third from right) and his family.
Shortly after the operating room sterilizer was put back in service (See Rwanda (click here for map), Mugenero Story) following installation of its new gasket, Colin Richardson, administrator of the Mugenero Hospital (in Rwanda), told Mr. Ken Kirk-Bayley, (GJ0KKB), in one of their regular radio schedules, of a young patient at the hospital who was born with a congenital heart defect. Samson was a teenager. Without corrective surgery his life expectancy was only a few more months. There were no facilities or doctors in Rwanda capable or willing to handle complicated cardiac surgery. Ken searched out a cardiac surgeon in Northern France who was willing to treat Samson. The Bush Hospital Foundation (BHF) made immediate arrangements for him to be flown, with a friend of the family Jerome Hakizimana, to France where the surgery was performed successfully, and at no charge except for the transportation and hospitalization.
The surgery was most successful, and Samson returned to his village with his parents. Doctors suggested that he would have to limit his physical activity permanently, or at least for a long period of time. Because of this limitation, Samson could not join his peers in field work and as a young man, could not contribute to the normal way of life in his village. It was therefore decided that some activity should be identified which would be compatible with his physical limitations but yet allow him to be productive.
The village had no tailor, either skilled or equipped to perform that important function in this simple society. Therefore, the BHF in its creativity, purchased and shipped a treadle sewing machine, upon which Samson learned his new trade. He is now an important and productive member of his village.
RCS
---------------Tragically as of July 2006 it is believed the Samson and his entire family perished in the genocide of 1994, according to William Stenberg, DDS.