Youngest terror victim arrives in Nairobi for treatment

By KIUNDU WAWERU

Mombasa, Kenya: Satrin Osinya, the eleven-month-old boy with a bullet lodged in his skull, was yesterday flown from Mombasa — where terrorists nearly snuffed out his tender life — to Nairobi for specialised treatment.

A team of 12 neurosurgeons has been assembled at Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH) to prepare for the delicate operation, but specialists say the earliest date for the surgery is after two weeks to avoid complications.

The Standard can retrace yesterday’s evacuation that may yet save this special baby a lifetime of pain.

At 9.15am yesterday, flight 5YFDE, a King Air 200 takes off from the Wilson Airport towards Mombasa. On board are a doctor and a nurse with a combined medical experience of 30 years, but the mission is special to both.

It began as both watched the Monday nine o’clock news and are touched by the story of the baby carrying a terrorist’s bullet in his head.

Even before the news bulletin is over, the top organ of their employer, Amref Flying Doctors, is in discussion over the plight of baby Satrin. Their decision is unanimous: this is a case for an emergency air evacuation.

Able to fly

Dr Reuben Misati then links up with Nurse Jane Munyua. They are on call 24/7, and have had no time to catch breakfast so they pack sandwiches and juice. On the flight to the coast, they are in regular communication with the doctors at Mombasa Hospital, where Master Satrin Osinya is to keep abreast of his condition. They are informed that he is in pain but stable and able to fly.

They are not worried though. The flight is virtually a mini well-equipped hospital. The advanced air ambulance has an oxygen system that can support any emergency.

It is cruising at 25,000 feet, but the cabin’s altitude is at 6,000 feet.

“That is important,” explains Dr Misati. “Our patient will not react with the outside pressure.”

He adds that although they examine and treat patients on the ground if need be, the air ambulance is equipped “like an ICU”. Today, they have packed drugs in a miniature fridge and a pediatric care kit.

After an hour in the air, the plane starts losing altitude. Mombasa, at 34 degrees Celsius is baking hot. A Mombasa County Ambulance screeches to a halt at the Moi International Airport besides the Amref plane. The apprehensive but elated family accompanies Mr Benson Osinya, Satrin’s father. It is hasty goodbyes and the plane goes wheels up again.

The Standard Group’s Mombasa bureau team is also here to follow the story they broke to the world, but there is not much time as the best neurosurgeons in Kenya are waiting for the boy at KNH.

During the flight, Dr Misati and nurse Munyua examine Satrin. He is holding onto his dear father’s shoulder like a vice and the medics opt not to strap him onto the stretcher, as is the norm. He cries incessantly and his dad’s phone cannot stop ringing.

The doctor employs the Glasgow Coma Scale looking for vital signs. There has to be a verbal sign to show that the brain is not affected.

The boy’s crying is a good sign. His limbs are moving and eyes are blinking spontaneously.

He is in stable condition.

“The heart rate is a bit high,” says the doctor, but that is because he is crying. “He might be crying from the heat,” he adds.

True enough, as Captain Ephraim Kanuli presses the button warning his subjects to fasten their seatbelts, Satrin stops crying and falls asleep as he sits on his dad’s lap, a welcome break after all the torrent of attention of the past 48 hours.

Stare blankly

It is father and son’s first time to fly, and Osinya stares glassy-eyed out the tiny window as Mombasa disappears behind a white cloud. He holds his head in his hands, stares blankly ahead, looks at his baby’s bandaged head and also dozes off.

Accompanying Osinya is his sister-in-law, Consolata Owino. At first she is too overwhelmed to speak. She lives in Ukunda, South Coast and when she heard from her husband that her sister had died; she dropped everything and rushed to Mtongwe, where Osinya lives with his four boys. The eldest is 20 years old.

There is a 19-year-old and Gift Moses, 13, who became an international sensation when photographed drenched in tears and holding his bloodied brother.

Osinya says Gift saw the gunmen before they indiscriminately opened fire at the innocent congregation of Joy of Christ Church.

He immediately hit the floor. When the madness stopped he rushed to where his mother was sitting holding her lastborn. She lay in a pool of blood. Satrin was wailing.

“My wife died on the spot,” Osinya says. “I was saved because that day I got a kibarua (casual construction job) and did not attend church.”

Osinya worked as a security guard in Mombasa before he was laid off four years ago. His hardworking wife, Veronica Atieno Ouma was the family’s breadwinner from her green grocer sales.

The x-ray scan shows the bullet scraped Satrin’s skull and lodged in his brain. Later at KNH, Dr Mwangi says the brain is swollen. The area around the bullet is dirty.

“We will clean it up later today, and operate on him to remove the bullet in about two weeks,” he says.

The bullet that hit the small boy was in “dead motion” meaning that it was either fired from far or it first hit Satrin’s mom before hitting him. Dr Mwangi, after examining the x-ray says the bullet must have been from a lower calibre rifle.

Satrin sleeps peacefully for the better part of 75-minute flight. When he opens his eyes they are bright and inquisitive. His father says he has always been a happy boy who loves cartoons.

At Wilson Airport Dr Misati is unsettled by the unexpected reception. Nodding in Satrin’s direction, he says: “At his age the boy might remember what happened on Sunday. Any commotion might not be good for him.”

A few minutes later, Satrin is aboard an Amref ambulance to KNH, but his condition remains stable. The doctors relax with smiles in their eyes.

On arrival, Health Cabinet Secretary James Macharia and KNH boss Lily Koros are at hand.

Later, it is mission complete for the flying doctors as they gracefully hand over their newfound friends to other hands. Health Cabinet Secretary James Macharia welcomed him.

Dr Mwangi tells his juniors: “I am happy he is very stable. Take him to my unit. A bed is waiting for him.”