Flying Angels

It all started a year ago, when a group of San Diego flyers were on their way back from a vacation in Baja California, the long, arid Mexican peninsula that runs 800 miles south of the California border. A sudden dust storm forced their light plane down at El Rosario, a poverty-stricken fishing village of 600 people near the Pacific Coast. The Mexicans gave the stranded flyers shelter--which was all they had to give. The grateful Americans returned a few weeks later with food, clothing and toys. Dr. Dale Hoyt took his medical bag along. Hearing that there was a doctor in town, one woman with pneumonia walked four miles to see him. El Rosario had never had a fulltime doctor. Those who were sick traveled 55 miles to another town--or stayed sick.

The visits by the San Diego people became a regular thing. Other doctors offered to help; so did nurses. Pharmacists donated drugs, and a doctor's widow volunteered her husband's instruments and examining-room equipment. Today, there are 45 members of San Diego's Flying Samaritans, as they call themselves. El Rosario's villagers call them "flying angels." Donating their time, talents and money (aviation fuel costs as much as $60 a trip per plane), they fly down to the village every two weeks, spend a day and a half treating the sick and performing needed operations. They get great satisfaction from it. Says Dr. E. Paul Woodward, who has made 20 trips to El Rosario: "When we save someone with antibiotics, they're astounded. They think we can do anything."

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