A story from Colin Brown, Maun pilot:

At home, tinkering with an electric motor, I am startled out of my concentration as my cell phone rings at my side, it is 3:45 pm. The clinic in Seronga, a village ninety miles away, needs a mercy flight to transport a severely injured woman to the hospital.

Pilots, paramedics, doctors and patients are probably the key players that come to mind when you think of an air ambulance flight. But on the ground, another key player, the Flight Coordinator, is orchestrating events to make the flight happen. During weekday hours, Bojelo Marari, fills the role of Flight Coordinator for FMS air ambulance flights. During non-office hours, Mark Spicer and the pilots on call take over.

At three o'clock Sunday afternoon, the Maun hospital called requesting an air ambulance flight. Roger Weaver and Ryan Cole flew to Maun with the paramedics and transferred a premature baby to Francistown. Shortly before ten o'clock Sunday night, Roger notified Mark, who was "flight-following", that they were back on the ground in Gaborone. They said good night, and Roger went home to bed. Mark went to bed, too. At 11:44, his phone rang.

I'm not privy to many days in the life of Mark Spicer, but I have a ringside seat at night. Mark took some vacation days during the holidays, and toward the end of his time off, it occurred to me how quiet our evenings had been. Usually our evenings are monopolized by his cell phone. Take yesterday as a case in point:

Mark got home from the hangar at 6:15 p.m., just as Kg and I were sitting down for supper. I served Mark a plate, too, but as so often happens, his cell phone rang shortly after he sat down. A doctor at the Ghanzi hospital was calling to request a mercy flight. The patient was an 11-year-old girl who had swallowed a 2-pula coin (larger than a quarter). The doctor said that it was lodged in her throat so tightly that saliva couldn't even get through; it was pooling in her mouth.

What happens to someone in Botswana who becomes critically ill or injured far from a Referral Hospital? There is a good chance that person will be transported by air ambulance to Gaborone or Francistown by Flying Mission Services.

FMS recently entered into an agreement with the Botswana Ministry of Health to provide air ambulance services, carrying on a 28-year tradition of transporting Batswana patients.

It was not just an ordinary Sunday in Botswana. It was Boipuso, Independence Day. During his greeting, our pastor remarked that many babies born on Independence Day are given the name Boipuso. Mark tried hard to think of anyone he knew who was born on the 30th of September, but his mind drew a blank, and the thought of babies born on Independence Day passed out of his mind.

Walt Driediger (FMS maintenance specialist) had smelled smoke at the airport before, so he didn't think it was that unusual Monday afternoon, when he walked from the maintenance office into the hangar and smelled smoke. “It was God at work,” said Walt. “He prompted me to go outside and look.” What he saw was a grass fire approaching the hangar. He went back in the hangar and informed the other guys. “Hey, guys! Do you know there's a fire out there?”

Having attended the dedication of our King Air 90 this year I was reminded of other dedications of FM planes I had had the privilege of attending. In 1983 I was present when we dedicated a Cessna 206 named “Lephoi la Pula” which means “The Dove of Blessing”. Dr Alfred Merriweather, our then Patron, did the dedicating.

During the frosty, dark hours of a winter morning in the Kalahari Desert, a baby boy was born to a young San (Bushman) woman. The birth of a baby in Botswana is a welcome and celebrated event, a triumph for the mother. This mother's joy, however, was mixed with worry and fear. Her tiny son, weighing only one kilogram, had arrived prematurely, 30 days before he was due.