Italian rugby star Mbanda joins virus fight as ambulance driver SUPERHERO
IN more normal times Maxime Mbanda might have been lining up against England in the final round of the Six Nations a week ago.
But these are far from normal times and rugby has temporarily disappeared from the radar of the Italy flanker.
He is working on the frontline of his country’s fight against Covid-19 as an ambulance driver, doing what he can to help turn the tide of death in his country.
Mbanda has no medical training but physical strength and resilience and has decided to use it where it’s most needed.
“I started eight days ago, with shifts of 12 or 13 hours. But faced with what I see I tell myself that I can’t be tired,” he said.
“Fear is normal. But there are little things that can be done safely that would give those on the frontline a half-hour or an hour’s rest. For them, an hour is crucial. As long as I’m strong, I’ll keep going. I’m here and I’m staying here.”
Mbanda – whose Congolese father is a surgeon in Milan – felt unable to stand by as Italy’s healthcare system was overwhelmed by the virus.
Parma, where Mbanda plays his club rugby for Zebre, is one of the worst-hit areas.
“When everything was cancelled in rugby I wondered how I could help, even without medical expertise,” said the 27-year-old, who was part of Italy’s World Cup squad and played against England when they last visited Rome in 2018.
“I found the Yellow Cross which had a transport service for medicine and food for the elderly.
“I found myself transferring positive patients from one local hospital to another.
“I help with the stretcher or if there are patients to be carried from a wheelchair. I also hold the oxygen.”
Witnessing the suffering, even of the survivors, has been a sobering, traumatic experience for Mbanda.
“When you see the look in their eyes ... even if they can’t speak they communicate with the eyes and tell you things you can’t imagine,” he said.
“They hear the alarms, the doctors and nurses running from one ward to the next. The first person I collected from the hospital told me he had been there for three hours when the neighbour in the next bed died.
“And during the night, two other women died in his room. He had never seen anyone die.”
Earlier this year Mbanda donated his rugby kit to a refugee team near Turin.
He made the observation then that: “Rugby is a sport of respect. We might be like animals on the pitch, but off the pitch we are very kind guys.”
His instinct in his challenging new world is to offer patients physical as well as emotional support.
“But the terrible thing is every time you touch them, a simple caress in the ambulance to comfort them, you must immediately disinfect your hands,” he said.
Italy is a nightmare case. It overtook China, where the outbreak began, to climb to the top of the grim international coronavirus death table at the weekend.
But Mbanda has committed to continue the struggle until his homeland is through these sad times.
His warning to people in other countries, if they want to avoid a similar catastrophe, is to act on official advice over social distancing before it is too late.
“If people saw what I see in the hospitals, there would not be a queue in front of supermarkets any more,” he said. “They would think two, three or four times before leaving home, even to go out running.
“What I see are people of all ages, on respirators, on oxygen; doctors and nurses on 22-hour shifts, not sleeping one minute of the day and just trying to get some rest the next day.
“I wish I could say that the situation here has reached its limit. But I’m afraid I have to say that’s not the case.”