Ham radio operators tune in hurricane help | csmonitor.com

Ham radio operators tune in hurricane help | csmonitor.com

"Ham radio operators tune in hurricane help

By Barbara W. Carlson | Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor

NEWINGTON, CONN. 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.

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.'"