Welcome to Jackie's Blog

I'm so excited to be traveling to Freetown, Sierra Leone to serve on Mercy Ships as admin. to the medical staff on board the Africa Mercy. Many of you have asked me to post a blog of my journey; I'll try to keep you updated as best I can. I will miss you all and thank you for your prayers!

Disclaimer: This blog is my personal experience and opinion and opinions,conclusions and other information expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of Mercy Ships.



Friday, March 11, 2011

Events of Screen Day

We arrived at 5:00 a.m. at the National Stadium prepared to see as many people as possible, screen them, and make appointments for them to board the ship.  I heard that there were about 4,000 people lined up outside the stadium, when the crowd pressed into the gate and people were crushed and trampled resulting in several injuries and one death.  We abruptly stopped the screening, packed everything up and were told to evacuate the stadium immediately. It was devastating for the people who had been waiting all night to be seen and those who used most of their yearly wage to travel to the  screening.

I was on the further side of the entrance gates doing registrations, so I was relatively unaware of the turbulent events at the gate.  However, many volunteers formed a human chain to maintain control, but things just kept escalating. Some of the crew were also deeply traumatized by the events.

No comments:

Post a Comment