A humanitarian trip to Nicaragua was a bust.
A team of Good Samaritans from Langley, who were taking emergency vehicles and equipment down to Central America, didn’t make it.
Nicaragua or bust… it was a bust, said Langley City resident and Burnaby firefighter Erik Vogel.
He was heading up the Operation Nicaragua convoy from Langley to Chinandega, Nicaragua, – about an hour outside the capital of Managua. They left Oct. 4.
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They were driving two decommissioned ambulances, which had been donated to the project. They were also taking a bunch of first aid and emergency responder supplies, as well as baseball uniforms.
“The Mexicans refused to let us drive through,” Vogel said. “Pretty choked with the Mexicans right now.”
It was an eight-day round trip and they covered 5,000 km. Vogel admits he was prepared, given the age of the ambulances, to run into some mechanical problems along the way.
But that wasn’t really a hurdle they faces.
“The ambulances ran great. No major breakdowns,” he said, noting bitterly, “we could have been there by now.”
The reason given for denying them access through Mexico, according to Vogel, was that “commercial” vehicles are not allowed.
“Our registration papers still say commercial on them,” he shared with the Langley Advance.
It didn’t matter that the vehicles were privately owned, or that they were being donated, or that they had “a ton of supplies” they were planning to drop off in the earthquake zone, Vogel said.
“We tried two different border crossings and argued for three days,” he added.
But their fight was futile.
“We gave up and returned home,” Vogel said.
One ambulance has already been taken to Kamloops and the other goes up Wednesday to be warehoused.
Operation Nicaragua shipped fire trucks in the past, but the process was filled with exceptional challenges. They thought driving these vehicles down would help alleviate some of the problems.
So, what happens next? Vogel said it’s unclear.
READ: Used fire gear gets an ecclestiastical send off from Langley
He believes Operation Nicaragua will try to raise funds to ship the ambulances next year, but has been warned by a broker in the U.S. that “it’s a horrendous procedure to import them.”
In the meantime, all the safety and emergency gear inside, he claims, can’t be shipped, so he’s not sure what might happen with that.
“We gave some to paramedics who were collecting donations on the roadside,” Vogel said. “Wish I gave them everything, but we expected to get permission on the Monday (we were told to try Monday at a different office).”
• Stay tuned for updates on this evolving story
