Taxis light remote airstrip for emergency take-off

Their lights blaring in the night, hundreds of mototaxis lined an unlit airstrip in a jungle region of Peru so an emergency medevac plane with three very sick patients could take off. (AFP)

Published Monday, April 08, 2013

By AFP

Their lights blaring in the night, hundreds of taxis lined an unlit airstrip in a jungle region of Peru so an emergency medevac plane with three very sick patients could take off.

All three survived after the 300-odd drivers of motorcycles fashioned into small taxis with compartments for passengers heeded a call Wednesday night from a radio station to race to the 800-meter airstrip in Contamana, in one of Peru's poorest regions, Peruvian media reported.

The airstrip is not equipped for nocturnal flights because it has no lights.

The patients were a woman and her newborn, both with serious problems after delivery, and a man with a tropical disease.

"We have always been people with a heart," said Adolfo Lobo, the radio presenter who put out the call for help.

Contamana, a town of 26,000, has a hospital with no equipment for emergency situations and the airport is rudimentary.

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