The Hatfields and the McCoys...

There's nothing like an old fashioned family feud to keep us docs busy. In the small village of San Jose de Eden, a five hour hike up the mountains from the road, all has not been well.

Last week after already going into the hospital twice that night, I was called at 5:30am with the report of a 79 year old man that had been shot in the chest and in both arms. My first question was, "Is he alive?". The nurse told me that he was talking to her and complaining of a "little pain" in the right arm where she could see the broken bones bulging at the skin with every movement. Miraculously, the bullet to the chest did not damage any major internal organs, but he did have two broken arms. He says men came into the home to rob he and his wife while they were sleeping and when he got out of bed, they shot him three times. His family made a makeshift cot and carried this man down the mountain in the dark for 5 hours!

The next night as this sweet old man was laying in bed with two casts on his arms so that he couldn't even scratch his nose, another man came in from that same little mountain village. He had been cut up with a machete and had bled so much that they couldn't get a blood pressure. After giving him a lot of fluid and stopping the blood gushing from his arm, he improved some. Dr. Greene was caring for him and just happened to be his blood type, so then and there between giving meds and sewing up his wounds, Dr. Greene donated blood for a transfusion. If that isn't an awesome missionary doctor, I don't know what is!!!

It turns out that this young machete wound victim had been attacked by a son of the elderly man who was shot. The other son (who incidentally had been shot in the shoulder a month ago) of the elderly man was in the hospital with his dad and kept going into the room where the machete wound victim was. Once everyone realized what was going on, the police were brought in to help protect our patients from the revenge of family members.

Later on, a young boy came in with a gunshot to his knee and reported his father had been killed. He was from a village near to the others. We can't find a definite connection, but it sounds like there are several angry men in that region who are drinking too much and causing a lot of problems!

Fortunately, there has been no violence in the hospital and everyone denies everything. We sometimes hear about these family feuds in the mountains where there is no law and no police ever venture. People take the law into their own hands in those parts, just like in the Old West. Who knows what may have precipitated this latest round of violence? A stolen cow, a stolen wife, land disagreements from generations past... We just pray that as we reach out to communities here and eventually farther up in the mountains, that people will learn a way other than revenge. We pray that they will learn the way of Christ and not feel compelled to shoot and machete each other in retribution for what has happened to their family or forefathers.