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October 18, 2002/Cheshvan 12 5763, Vol. 55, No. 8
Surgeon's team saves Bali terror victims
HENRY BENJAMIN
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
SYDNEY, Australia - For Graeme Southwick, an early Sunday morning on an idyllic island launched a day that turned from a dream into a nightmare.
Southwick was relaxing by the pool of his hotel in Bali after attending a plastic surgeon's conference when he learned of the night club bombing that had claimed more than 180 lives the day before.
Southwick, 55, an active member of Australia's Jewish community, immediately contacted the island's only hospital, in the capital of Denpasar.
Hospital staff initially told Southwick, the president of the Society of Australian Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, that everything was under control. A few hours later, however, he received a phone call from a plastic surgeon in Jakarta asking for his help.
Southwick ended up working 15 hours straight. Today, 64 victims are on the road to recovery thanks to the efforts of his medical team, which worked in cramped wards with limited supplies.
"I was not prepared for what I saw," he said.
The attack is believed to be the work of Jemaah Islamiah, a group headed by a 64-year-old Muslim cleric, Abu Bakar Bashir, that has links to Al-Qaida. Bashir blames the United States for the attack.
In addition to the dead, who come from around the world, 300 people are injured and 200 are missing.
The Australian government had promised to send an Air Force medical unit to assist the doctors, but it was not due for several hours. So Southwick and his team - which included a second-year plastic surgeon trainee from Australia who was on holiday, and his wife, a third-year trainee as an anesthetist - went to work helping people who had suffered burns over as much as 80 percent of their bodies.
The first plane from the Royal Australian Air Force arrived about 10 p.m. on Oct. 13, and Southwick's team sent patients to the airport in a convoy of nine ambulances, each carrying three wounded.
With more space available in the wards, Southwick was able to identify additional Australian and English patients. He began to stabilize them and prepare them for evacuation to Australia, where they could be treated in proper burn units.
At one stage, 64 patients were lying on the tarmac of Denpasar airport waiting for a flight to Australia.
Southwick recalled the case of one woman whose name he never learned.
"She was about 18 and had severe burns around the respiratory area as well as brain damage. We sent her on the first available flight" to Australia, but she died en route, he said.
Most of the patients were on pain medication and remained conscious during the stabilization and evacuation process, Southwick said.
"The patients were wonderful. Some refused painkillers, as they thought others needed them more," he said.
Despite his years as a doctor, nothing had prepared Southwick for the experience in Bali.
"I have never seen injuries on such a dreadful scale. It was a horrific sight which will remain in my memory forever,'' he said.
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