COVID help for border
Medic Outpost delivers intubation boxes to rural Mexican, South Texas hospitals
In a steamy Heights garage, Larry Hill stores supplies and materials that will potentially save lives. Plexiglass has been hard to find since the start of the coronavirus pandemic in March, he said. But he keeps making calls anyway. “There’s so much to do,” he said. Hill is building intubation boxes by hand to donate to Mexican and Texas border town hospitals and clinics. Though not a carpenter, he is a retired paramedic who knows what it is like to be on the front lines with little to no personal protective equipment.
“You want to talk about heroes: the University Hospital in Chihuahua City has all the COVID cases in the entire city,” Hill said. “All of the workers have gotten sick.”
Hill’s nonprofit organization Medic Outpost has donated hundreds of masks, reusable protective gowns, face shields and goggles to hospitals in Texas, Mexico and Africa. Hill also trains first responders on advanced medical, international and geriatric life support, as well as neonatal resuscitation.
The intubation box enterprise began this spring to help stop the spread of the virus at underfunded rural and international hospitals, he said. An ill-timed sneeze or cough can spread infectious respiratory droplets as far as 13 feet, according to some studies.
When a patient is no longer able to breathe on her own, a respiratory therapist aided by nurses and other health care workers will insert a plastic breathing tube in the patient’s throat, and into her lungs. The tube is attached to a ventilator. This intubation process has become more dangerous because of how COVID-19 is spread from person to person.
Hill makes the 20-by-22-inch boxes from wood and plexiglass; each costs $92 to make. Prices have increased as plexiglass has become scarce, he said.
Hill moved to Houston in January to expand the reach of his nonprofit, which he started in 2018 after joining a medical group that trained remote clinics in Kenya.
“People were just dying at home in their beds from things that can be treated in a few minutes,” Hill said. “There were no physicians, and it’s 70 miles to the nearest hospital and no one had a car. Kids, babies, Grandma — they’d all die at home, and the families would bury them in the yard and feel ashamed.”
Hill returned to Terlingua, the town in West Texas where he lived, and began picking up shifts at the local hospital. Though technically retired, he has more than 40 years of experience as a paramedic and is certified in CPR, advanced cardiovascular and pediatric trauma life support, as well as combat casualty care.
In Terlingua, he saw the need for more of everything: workers, equipment and training.
On a recent donation trip to Ojinaga, a town in the Mexican state of Chihuahua, Hill conducted a one-day training session on basic airway obstruction techniques, proper
intubation and how to safely use the boxes.
“First responders are the eyes and ears of medical professionals,” he said. “And in these places, they don’t have anything.”
In 2020 alone, Medic Outpost has delivered 38 intubation boxes to hospitals in Austin, San Antonio, Woodville, Livingston, El Campo, Wharton, Alpine, San Augustine and La Grange, as well as Ojinaga, Chihuahua City and Mexico City.
Hill and other volunteers have provided medical supplies and trained first responders in nine hospitals, clinics and fire stations in Kenya, including three national parks run by the Kenya Wildlife Service.
Andy Mouer, a Houston lawyer and Medic Outpost board member, met Hill years ago when the paramedic was moonlighting as a tennis pro. Now he is the landlord for Hill’s garage space, which has become the unofficial carpentry shop for the nonprofit.
“I feel privileged to be part of this enterprise,” Mouer said. “(Hill’s) been dedicated to train and help first responders and has been consistent with that mission for years.”
While focused on COVID-19 now, Medic Outpost has lofty goals for the years to come, including the development of a network of trained professionals who can train medical workers in rural areas and a thorough expansion of his Texas services.
He would also like to get used, but still serviceable, medical equipment from well-off hospitals to donate to underfunded ones in Texas and internationally. He is working with a few organizations on grant writing and other funding opportunities.
Soon, Medic Outpost will be an official nonprofit organization in Mexico, which means Mexicans will be able to donate and receive tax incentives for doing so.
“I can do the EMS part, but the other stuff … I’ll just be back in the corner with a hammer,” Hill said.