The Tetanus Vaccine Story – “No” is not an option

Okay, I told you last night that at some point, I’d have to tell you the tetanus vaccine story.   Since I just got off the phone with one of the key participants in the story, I thought I should tell you tonight.

This is a story that, in my mind, is important because of the way that it took many people working together to make it happen.    Let me tell you about it.

The story started when Laurie Bickel needed someone to vent on.   She instant messaged me that she was hearing from a number of her friends at various medical clinics that they couldn’t get any tetanus vaccines and that people were going to die if they didn’t get some.

What can 1 guy up in Michigan do about that?  Well, I told the story.   I put it out on the blog here and sent out some e-mails that attempted to get the story out.   Oh, and I prayed about it.

Well, there’s a lady in Nevada who read about it.  She was talking at her office with one of her employees.   That employee has a friend living in the San Francisco area who works for a medical supply company (names and company descriptions are being held purposely vague).   

So, the employee calls her friend and starts a conversation about this ministry in Haiti that is trying to round up some tetanus vaccines so save lives in Haiti.   Conversations commence, logistics are discussed, pharmaceutical companies are consulted.  Throughout all of the conversations, “No” is never considered as an answer.   It’s always a matter of how can we do this. 

Pharmaceutical company says they can produce the vaccine but it needs to be delivered to a Dr. in California.   No problem, friend has a friend who’s a pediatrician and she readily agrees to help out.

Funding for the tetanus vaccines was obtained from many of the supporters who read this blog (you all play a bigger part than you ever know.)   Vaccine was going to be ordered so that it could go in on a cargo plane this coming weekend.   Everything was going relatively smoothly…….

And then Monday, I got a message from Laurie that she had someone going in on a plane Thursday (the airport is still closed to commercial planes – it took my wife 4 days to find a flight out) and if we could get the vaccines to Miami by Thursday morning, we could have them escorted in.   That would increase the likelihood that they would get where they needed to go and would also increase the likelihood that they didn’t get stolen or “misappropriated” going in on a cargo plane.

“No” isn’t an option.  

So I got on the phone with the medical supply guy and the pediatrician in California.   We talked, we checked logistics, we called Fed Ex, we talked to American Airlines.   It turns out the only way we could get the vaccines to Miami in time was to have them flown commercially.  Now to find someone to do that…….

“No” isn’t an option.    So, the medical supply guy said to me, “I can do it.”   Here’s a guy who up until about a week and a half ago didn’t even know about God’s Littlest Angels and now he was volunteering to take two days off from work and fly from San Francisco to Miami and then turn around the next morning and fly back.  Why?   Because there are some people he’s never met and probably won’t who need that medicine and “No” isn’t an option.

Now we move to the next two “players” in the story.    We need a place to store the tetanus vaccines in Miami over night.   A Dr. in Miami who knows Laurie said, “No problem, whatever you need.”    That includes meeting to drop the vaccines at his office at 10:00 at night.  Oh, and we can’t forget the manager at American Airlines who waived $300 in baggage fees so that we could get the vaccines there.

The story isn’t done yet, but it’s getting close.   Tomorrow, the vaccines will be flown into Haiti.   They will be immediately delivered to a variety of medical clinics and hospitals in the greater Port Au Prince area and used to save lives.

600 adults will have a second chance to survive this tragedy because so many people believed that “No” is not an option.

400 children will have a second chance to survive this tragedy because of the generosity of so many strangers.

What have I learned from this story?

• Everyone can make a difference.   Think of that employee back in Nevada.  If she hadn’t reached out and called her friend, this wouldn’t have happened.
• When many people work together it’s amazing what can happen.

The unfortunate thing is that this type of cooperation needs to happen thousands and thousands of times over again before Haiti recovers.

The good thing is that if we all keep caring, it can.

Tom Vanderwell