Vanguard senior among first to render tsunami aid in Banda Aceh

Editor’s note: Scotty McAlvany, a semester shy of earning his bachelor’s degree in international business from Vanguard University, was ministering at a Bali orphanage when the Dec. 26 earthquake and tsunami pounded South Asia. Armed with much needed supplies, he and three others headed to the ravaged Banda Aceh region to help. The work was bloody and intense. So is this account. Be warned that some of this content is graphic.

BALI, Indonesia — Scotty McAlvany had no time to ponder the ways of God, but—even as he jumped from dying patient to dying patient, even as he sloughed through blood, vomit and tears, even as he filtered out the moans of those drowning from their own lungs, even as children shrieked as they stumbled into orphanhood—the college senior was in awe of His grace.

“I never felt it like that before, with all that death and dying, people screaming,” McAlvany, 22, said in a telephone interview just two days after returning to Southern California to finish his degree work. “God’s grace was so intense. There were so many people praying.”

The prayers rained down immediately after the 9.0 earthquake rocked Indonesia on Dec. 26, spewing forth a colossal tidal wave that killed at least 212,000 people in a dozen countries.

McAlvany was spending his Christmas break the way he’d spent every college break since late 2000—ministering with children in Bali through an established agency there.

On Dec. 26 his attention turned to more immediate concerns—life and death. Having badly needed water purification systems for his work in Indonesia, McAlvany teamed up with two other Southern Californians, including Biola alumnus, Ira Lippke, to bring it and more than $500 in medical supplies to
Banda Aceh, ground zero of the catastrophe.

Getting there was a miracle in itself, the student said, citing civil unrest and corruption. With the help of the United Nations in Jakarta and the region’s governor, the threesome, joined by an interpreter, were able to secure passage aboard military transport. They were directed to the site of a military hospital that had been closed, but was not pressed into emergency service.

“We arrived to find a scene beyond description,” McAlvany wrote in a compelling and graphic e-mail he sent to friends from Banda Aceh. “Hundreds of people were waiting for any kind of help, as there was little to no treatment in process.”

They set up their supplies and went to work.

“You go up there to help and the next thing you know I’m in the operating room assisting with surgeries, assisting with amputations,” McAlvany said upon return to the Costa Mesa, Calif. campus.

Crushing injuries
Weeks before his return, friends and family got a sense of the magnitude of the damage and destruction through his e-journal.

“One by one we cleaned wounds,” he wrote. “The problem was 90 percent of the patients were septic, which means the infection has already reached the blood and death is almost certain.”

With the lack of trained medical professionals, McAlvany was quickly doing more than cleaning wounds.

“Our first night there, I performed my first ever surgery ... I cut off almost half a man’s arm, as it was all gangrene and simply dead flesh,” McAlvany wrote. “The operation was performed over a bucket and in a room that was a solid puddle of blood. The lights were on and off as the power would surge with the continual earthquakes.

“We treated by candlelight. That night was endless ... the boys and I worked until 12:30, almost 1 in the morning. And we saw most of the critical cases die. Kids were screaming as their last surviving family member had just died.

“It was probably the hardest thing I’ve ever witnessed ... left and right we covered bodies with sheets and simply had to move on to the living patients. Under our care, 36 patients died the first night.”

In a scene that McAlvany described as reminiscent of the pictures from Auschwitz, they relocated patients to a new wing of the hospital, away from a triage area filled with tainted body fluids, infected flesh and the deceased, who were eventually piled outside until they could be transported to mass gravesites.

Not enough help
The first day, he said, was the most difficult as they faced hundreds of desperately injured men, women and children. With trained relief medical teams at least a day away, they were pressed into action.

“The helpers were few and far between. We could only give to so many, but thank God we were not entirely alone ...we had a team of medics from Malaysia who were brilliant,” he wrote. “We worked as hard and as fast as we could to salvage the ones who had a chance ... the biggest factor was time. We had to clean the wounds and cut out all the rotten flesh before it went into the blood stream.”

While the external injuries were easy to assess and prioritize, McAlvany said his heart broke for the hundreds of people who slowly drowned from water and mud that was lodged in their lungs.

“It was a scene I’ll never forget, as you would watch the patients struggle to catch their last breath,” he wrote. “All we could do was hold them and be with them in their last moments. They coughed and moaned and squirmed and then slowly they would slip away … as the shadow of death passed over them.”

Provisions abound
Although their days lasted 16 hours, and the number of injured eclipsed the workers, McAlvany said they took care to pray with each patient. Each day brought more help. The Lord, he said, also bridged the language gap, giving the Durango, Colo. native a keen understanding of the language, far beyond his basic comprehension.

“The fact that we made it in as the first Americans into the region; the fact that God knew our every need and provided food, shelter and full protection by the military; the fact that there was an amazing openness to pray and witness to one of the most closed people groups in all of Indonesia,” he wrote. “We were legends in the city, but above and beyond that we were known as the Christian Americans who came to help ... and that was probably the greatest miracle of all. There is nothing in the world like being an ambassador for Christ ... it is where life is found even amongst death.”

McAlvany will return to the region in May after earning his degree. He has committed to return to Indonesia for at least a year. In the meantime, his ears, and his heart, will be wide open.

“Every door basically opened for us,” he said. “It was one of the times of totally listening to God … We came. We made an incredible statement to these people.”

Published by Keener Communications Group, February 2005

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