Three Tanzanian schoolchildren who were injured in a horrific bus crash that killed 32 of their classmates in May are healed and ready to return home.
The three, Sadia, 13; Doreen, 13; and Wilson, 12, were rescued by members of the evangelical group Siouxland Tanzania Education Medical Ministries, or STEMM, who were working on a project in Tanzania and happened to be among the first people to arrive at the scene.
Leaders of the Sioux City, Iowa-based group were about to attempt to arrange for the three to be airlifted to America when Franklin Graham's relief and development group Samaritan's Purse stepped in and volunteered to transport them aboard its DC-8 jetliner.
The children had been on their way to another school to take an exam when the crash happened. Tanzania President John Magufuli called it a national tragedy. Tens of thousands were at a memorial service for the 35 victims, 32 students and three adults, and STEMM leaders said it seemed as if the entire nation turned out to see off the three survivors.
The Americans were among the first to arrive on the scene of the accident, and while pulling bodies from the wreckage, found the three children were critically injured but still breathing.
Now, the three children are heading home.
On Thursday, the children, their mothers and several medical workers from Tanzania will board the same DC-8 flown by Samaritan's Purse to return.
Samaritan's Purse said the flight also is carrying much-needed medical equipment for local hospitals and supplies for the students' school.
In July, WND reported on the progress the three children had made.
They were found to have had 17 fractures and multiple other injuries.
Dr. Steve Meyer, a Sioux City orthopedic surgeon, reported Doreen had been walking even though she was paralyzed from the waist down when she arrived.
The three children were taken to a local semi-pro baseball game on July 4 and threw out the first pitch as "cheers rained down from the crowd," according to a Samaritan's Purse report.
"God has touched these kids," Meyer said in the report. "After seeing how these three were when they arrived in May, and now just over six weeks later, this is absolutely phenomenal and transformational."
Meyer was coordinating with STEMM shortly after the accident, trying to arrange transport for the children and looking at possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars in bills, when his phone rang.
It was Franklin Graham, asking, "How can we help you?"
Meyer's friend, Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, had called Graham and asked for help.
Meyer said the story of American help for the children was "going viral" across Tanzania.
"It's been baffling to many Tanzanians, some of whom are Muslims, why these Americans were willing to help save these children. It's been a ray of light in this tragic event where God gave us a tremendous opportunity to share Jesus' love and to help them understand what the Gospel really means."
Al Jazeera reported May 6 the crash killed students from the Lucky Vincent school in Arusha.
The bus veered off a steep road in rainy conditions near the town of Karatu and plunged into a river, Al Jazeera said.
Meyer recounted sharing the treatment plans with the children's parents.
The father of the 12-year-old, a devout Muslim, simply asked, "Why? Why? Why?"
"Well, the God we serve reached out to Samaritans, Gentiles and it didn't matter. That's what we do," he told WND he responded.
The injuries were not minor: legs fractured, a head injury, nerve injuries, a fractured jaw, spine fractures, broken shoulder, broken legs and elbow dislocations.
STEMM already had put 10,000 children in school in the region, arranged for 1,000 medical operations over the years, and delivered instruction on farming and building bridges, roads and wells, the organization reports.
See news video of the scene:
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