Imagine being on vacation in a foreign country when tragedy strikes and your spouse has to be hospitalised. You have no friends on the island, and very little money and emotionally it?s all you can do just to hold it together. Who do you turn to for help?

In Bermuda, volunteers in the Hospitals Auxiliary of Bermuda help travellers through just such situations.

Last year, Hospitals Auxiliary volunteers, known affectionately as ?pink ladies? helped over 200 overseas patients who suddenly found themselves at the King Edward VII Memorial Hospital seeking emergency medical treatment.

The Hospitals Auxiliary is a charity that works within local hospitals. In addition to helping overseas patients, they also distribute reading material to hospital patients and man the Barn, the hospital gift shop and the Pink Cafe.

Marion Tatem, chairperson of overseas family health services said many of the situations the volunteers deal with are very sad.

?We have had some really nasty ones where a family member has been killed on the road or drowned,? said Mrs. Tatem. ?It is hard when you have to stand there and hold the family member?s hand while they call home to relay the bad news. That is hard.

?You just stay with the family member because they are literally a basket case. You bring them coffee, or help them to find accommodations. I did one drowning and it was very sad.

?We dealt with the lady who was recently shipped out with an aneurysm.

?That was traumatic. I took the sister to the airport because she wanted to see that the sister got on the air ambulance okay. The lady with the aneurysm died.?

The Hospitals Auxiliary overseas volunteers often act more like angels of mercy, going above and beyond the call of duty for people in need.

There is a room set aside at the nurse?s residence on Berry Hill Road for overseas patients who need a place to stay, but sometimes this isn?t available or appropriate.

Volunteers will sometimes take people home and put them in a spare room, if necessary.

They have also been known to baby-sit, cook, or dip into their own pockets to buy groceries or new clothing.

?These volunteers are incredibly dedicated,? said Hospitals Auxiliary executive secretary Lena Ostroff. ?They will come day and night and sometimes in the summer they will have three or four patients. No is not in their vocabulary. They will do anything to help.?

One such above and beyond the call situation happened 15 years ago after a boating accident off of Bermuda.

?These folks were sailing past Bermuda when their sailboat did a 360,? said long-time volunteer Maxine Tribley. ?There were two brothers on the boat with their wives. The captain injured his back when the boat turned and he actually broke his neck.?

Because Bermuda did not have a rescue helicopter, the US Coast Guard was contacted. They put a helicopter in the belly of a larger aircraft and flew it to Bermuda. From Bermuda the helicopter went out 250 miles to rescue the people.

?They brought them ashore and I got a call to come to the hospital,? said Mrs. Tribley. They still had sealegs. They couldn?t stand up. They walked along holding the walls. They were black and blue from head to toe.

?All they had saved were nine duffel bags of paper and clothing that I took home and washed and dried. I didn?t want to put them in a hotel after what they had been through.

?The captain was airlifted to the United States. These folks had taken early retirement and put everything they had into the sailboat.?

The captain survived and Mrs. Tribley still sometimes hears from the family who now live in Arizona.

In another incident, Mrs. Tribley and Mrs. Tatem helped a young, South African nun who found herself unexpectedly in Bermuda.

?We had two nuns travelling from South Africa,? said Mrs. Tribley. ?One of them was a novice. They lived up in the hills. This younger nun had never been out of the convent. The older nun was more experienced.

?They were flying from South Africa to the United States for a conference. The mother superior took ill on the flight and the flight was diverted here.

She died, and the young nun ? who had never been out of the convent ? found herself alone. The volunteers jumped in to help, and so did people in the Catholic church here.?

Mrs. Ostroff said that the medical staff at the hospital help with the illness or accident itself, but the volunteers help the families and patients deal with the emotional aspects of being suddenly unwell in a foreign country.

?The volunteers hold their hands,? said Mrs. Ostroff. ?There are situations that are hard to imagine how you find yourself in.?

Some of the emergency situations that the Hospitals Auxiliary volunteers are called out to are bizarre. Many of the calls for help are for women in labour who didn?t know they were pregnant.

?We had one lady recently who was working on a cruise ship,? said Mrs. Tatem. ?She had stomach pain and she went to the ship doctor, and he said ?you need to go to the hospital. Not only are you pregnant, you are overdue?.?

The Hospitals Auxiliary volunteers had to put the lady up, and find baby clothing and other items for her. She left the island without even telling the volunteers thank you.

In another, similar situation a lady went into labour with three other small children in tow. Again, she hadn?t even known she was pregnant.

The Hospitals Auxiliary deals with many people who have been taken off of cruise ships because they don?t feel well.

?I don?t think people realise that cruise ships don?t want you on board when you are sick,? said Mrs. Ostroff. ?If you go to the ship?s doctor and say you don?t feel well the passenger will be booted right off because the ships want to avoid law suits. They don?t want any risk of litigation.?

When Mrs. Tribley first started volunteering at King Edward VII Memorial Hospital she didn?t get a lot of thanks for it. In fact, she had the air let out of her car tyres.

It was the 1970s and Mrs. Tribley helped with laundry and bed making at the hospital during a strike.

?I had been volunteering at St. Brendans. A relative of mine was co-coordinating volunteers at King Edward VII Memorial Hospital.

?She asked me to help out, because of the work I had done at St. Brendans. I started working in Memorial Ward. I was eventually graduated to ward clerk. I still work there and it is now called Gordon Ward.?

Not all of the volunteers in the Hospitals Auxiliary are female. New recruit Patrick Cerra said he is comfortable wearing pink if it means helping someone.

?I am the new kid on the block,? said Mr. Cerra. ?I have been volunteering at the hospital for about four months. I was coming over to the hospital for some blood tests so I thought why not volunteer here.

?I inquired at the information desk and they put me in touch with Gillian Freelove-Jones. She is the volunteer coordinator for the Hospitals Auxiliary.?

Mr. Cerra helps out with the overseas volunteers when needed, but mostly he acts as a cashier in the Pink Caf?.

Last year the Hospitals Auxiliary raised over a million dollars for the hospital through funds from the Pink Caf?, the hospital Gift Shop and the Barn which sells used clothing and other items at bargain prices.

@EDITRULE:

To keep the Hospitals Auxiliary going, the charity is always looking for new volunteers to help out. For more information about becoming an Hospitals Auxiliary volunteer, contact Gillian Freelove-Jones at 236-2488.