It nearly blew his head off.

It nearly blew His head Off.
One day a band of men arrived at our mission hospital carrying a hunting net strung over two poles with a man lying in the makeshift stretcher. They had been carrying him for two days looking for help.
Their villages had been holding the yearly hunt in the Savannah grasslands.
Now it was dry season when the grass was about three metres tall and dry as tinder. They would start a burn about a five kilometres square and run along behind the flames on the scorched ground sometimes with sandals made from old car-tyres to protect their feet.
This man was hunting with his home made blunderbuss gun. It had a barrel made from a tie-rod of a Land rover and a locally made cocking piece and trigger system from the local blacksmith.
They packed the barrel with gunpowder then raffia, then centre metre and a half sections of old bike axes then more raffia. The fuse is a small cap made from matches which is struck by the hammer.
Well this unfortunate had the back end of the barrel explode in his face as he lined up an antelope. It had blown his jaw completely off one side of his face leaving a gaping hole followed by many flies.

As we were not equipped to deal with such a massive operation as this I was asked to transport him to the Kabinda Government Hospital. It was five hours over a bone shaking road with the patient on a foam mattress in the back of the Forward Control Land rover. We arrived about 11pm at the hospital and the night wards man said to put him on an ancient trolley. He was sleeping with all sorts of gurgling noses coming from him. They said we'll see to him in the morning. He's been two days on the road already so he'll last till morning. They didn't have any electricity anyway nor a surgeon present.
Life is very fragile in many countries and local doctors, nurses and midwives have to tackle huge medical and surgical challenges with very little help.
Thank God for the faithful who put their lives on the line and do such a wonderful job. In Memory of Tabo Joan Bond who delivered our first two children in the African outback