Great Read

Dear Kim,
Just finished your book, couldn't put it down. Many chapters had me in tears as I remembered the conditions that Sunday in the Melati Ward. I too have memories of Dr Ponytail's boundless energy and Dr Vijay cutting one girls arm open to save her fingers. Your book brought so many details back to me that up until now have seemed surreal and dreamlike.

Thanks for your story, it was definately one that needed to be told.

Cheers,
Dawn

Dear Kim,
My name is Theo Faasen, I am ambulance-nurse in Holland. I just finished reading you book about the Bali disaster. I am writing you to tell you that for a great part is is equal with my memories about it. I heard about the bombing when I was in Holland on sunday 13 oktober, bought a ticket for bali on monday, flew on tuesday and arrived on wednesday. I went to Sanglah to offer my services on thursday. I stayed for about 3 weeks.Especially I worked a lot in the morgue and is was very confrontating to read about it in your book. When I was there I just did wat had to be done, but it is so different to read about it from someone who had the same experiences. When I got home I did not even try to talk about it (in details that is) with friends or relatives, because I was certain they would not understand. No one that really was not there can imagine the smell, the heat, the feeling, the hectic of the whole situation. Who can have an idea about how it feels to open blown-up bodybags, pushing the gasses out en putting packages of dry ice between God knows what parts of bodies? Who knows how it feels to be cleaning the floors from the body fluids en melted ice? Assisting forensic teams with opening bodies and faces for the forensic dentists?

In Holland I arrived as first ambulance at an airplane that crashed in my city Eindhoven, some 7 years ago. There were 34 people killed and many wounded, all members of a military orchestra . I thought I had seen something about disaster management, but this was so much more. Again: when I got back home again I had the feeling I could not really talk about it.

At the moment I am back in Bali (I already came back in May) and I am glad that my old friend Marina Purwa (I think you know her well) gave me your book.

As I said it was not easy for me to read it (not only because it is in English) but it makes me feel better that in a way you expessed more or less the same feelings that I had in words and writing. Thank you so much for that.

Good luck to you and your work on my beloved Bali.
Theo Faasen

Hi Kim
I read the whole book last night and was very moved by it. I thought you found the right balance between a factual account and not being gratuitously graphic. I was amazed that you were able to remember so many details from those first two days, when you were clearly exhausted

Regards
Melissa King, The Advertiser,(Adelaide, S.A.)

Dear Kim,
I was quite surprised to come back at the office after hours this afternoon to find 2 copied of your book on my desk. I was waiting for a guest and started to read. Almost disappointed he'd disturb me when he showed up to pick up his wine, I picked it up again at home around 17:30 and just finished it. I could not put it down...

I read it with my heart, not because it brought back good memories, but I guess because it felt as some sort of therapy. I find that even if one whole year has passed, I still need to talk about it, read about it, not let it go. That Sunday, will be in my life for ever. I just have to keep trying to deal with it. I remember you walking around the wards, answering my questions with patience when you had other things to do...

I am writing to you for one very special reason: I want to tell you what happened to the French girl. It was me in the room at Ratna.) I still have tears in my eyes as I am writing these few lines... That particular moment you wrote about, was one of the worse moments where I had to be there and strong when parts of me wanted to just run away. She needed me; she was the one in bad shape. I really want you to know, you did not make a bad call: she indeed not moving her toes and fingers. The fact that she started to move her toes and fingers was just pure desperation on her part. She did not want the cuts; she wanted to look good in front of the doctor so he would not cut her feet open. It was extreme will power that made her move her toes.

She is French of Algerian descent, explaining her big brown eyes. I feel so fortunate to have been able to meet that girl! She was so strong... Her name is Esma.

She was evacuated at around 02:00 a.m. and I was worried she would not have a bed-sitter in Singapore and be all alone. I called a fellow French Canadian living in there to see if she could take a day off and go visit Esma nad explain things in the hospital, act as a translator and help her understand what was happening. My friend Helene ended up spending the whole week there at Esma's side, communicating with her family in France and keeping me informed.

I have heard from Esma since. After her return to France, she fell into a coma but made it and had several other skin grafts after the 5 she had received in Singapore. Last I heard from her, she still had over one year of therapy before being able to go back to work. I think of her often, every time the victims are mentioned. Of course we talk about the dead, but I think also about her, her scars, 2 years of her life in rehab and the hanger she must have. I really want to see her again although my finances don't allow for a trip to Europe.

But she's fine. She's smiling again.

This is another "good" ending to one of the stories mentioned in your book.

I just wanted to let you know, and thank you for writing this book for all of us here in Bali, the "untrained" bed-sitters...

Maryse

Dear Kim,
I just wanted you to know how much I enjoyed your book. It was a very late night the night I opened the first page. I could not put it down and have recommended it as a good read to all who will listen or who does not already have a copy. I have told them it would be a good Christmas present for all and sundry. The way you wrote it was very easy reading and one could feel the emotions running through the pages. Anyway I think I made my point and if you ever find the time to become a full time writer I think you would be good at it.

Take care and good luck.
Janine Pitman

In the Arms of the Angels: Memoirs of a Medical Volunteer, Bali, October 2002, Kim A. Patra, Wakefield Press $22.95 Florence Nightingale may be the de facto patron saint of nurses, but few people appreciate that her reputation was largely due to her organisational abilities. She knew how to lobby and how to work her way through bureaucratic processes to get the supplies and conditions necessary for her nurses to function properly. It was this ability to tenaciously work the system, rather than pat fevered brows, that made Nightingale a saint. A permanent resident of Bali and a trained nurse, when the Sanglah hospital was inundated with victims of the bombings, Kim Patra worked as a triage nurse and set up a system of operations that would have made Florence Nightingale proud. Patra also understood the protocols. To the frustration of the volunteer medical staff, she made sure they gained permission from the hospital personnel before they went anywhere near the patients. On the second day after the bombings, the tireless Australian Vice-Consul David Chaplin asked her to go to the morgue, where they were confronted with the appalling task of sorting and preserving some 200 bodies. Here she observed young volunteers, ``servants of the dead", traipsing through a bloody liquid waste as they lifted and labelled the dead. Patra's first-hand account is immediate and raw and succeeds in its primary mission: to give witness to the tragedy of the Bali bombings and to give thanks to the people who helped the victims of that tragedy. It should also be of great interest to medical workers as well as the general reader.

Reviewer
Dianne Dempsey , "The Age".

Dear Kim,
A friend loaned me your book. I've read it and would like to get copies to give to some people. There is a raw power in your writing and yes, now I understand why you took up smoking again. After your experiences that seems a minor issue. I read it in one sitting (or should I say 'lying' in bed very late at night). It was deeply moving and frightening yet you sustained humour and warmth. The trials of the bombers were covered in detail in Aus. but little of the true horror conveyed in your book became a reality for many people, the papers were judicious in what they printed, probably because of political relationships with Indonesia. I appreciated the diplomacy and necessary tact conveyed in your writing, things most Australians never socially consider, we're a fairly bull in the china shop culture but honestly forthright, qualities I love but which don't work in many other cultures.
Again congratulations Kim.

Regards,
Tess and Murray Young .

Dear Kim,
Thankyou for "In the Arms of the Angels" and your kind words on the inside cover. I certainly did not feel like an angel during my time at Sanglah. The true angels in my eyes were the silent army of volunteers that sat by bedsides comforting the injured and providing real care. I am so pleased that your web site and book go toward honouring them. Like Bill 'O'Neil and Tony Pethick, I do not feel I was able provide much in the way of medical services and I hope that helping and providing support to the non-medical volunteers and simply 'being there' for the injured was a worthwhile contribution.

I'm not sure if we met at Sanglah as I was asked to restrict myself to the first floor ward by John Hogg - although in the last few hours I spent about half my time in Melati. Your book certainly encapsulates many of the thoughts, issues and emotions that I felt up on the first floor. It perhaps doesn't fully capture the sense of remoteness, lack of contact with the main group at Melati and constant fear of our patients being forgotten and left behind that we all felt. In all other respects it covers everything from the luck of not going into the Kuta area due to late change of plans through the frustration and senselessness of it all and the amazement at the stoicism & resilience of the injured, the dedication of the young volunteers and the battle to protect from the press.

Thankyou for so accurately and explicitly depicting the events at the hospital and after.

Kind Regards,
Stephen Hodby .

Dear Kim,
Please forgive my audacity in writing to you. However after having just read and then re-read your book (after Pat finally put it down) I felt an overwhelming compulsion to write and express to you the feelings that within me were generated. I am of normally strong character and not prone to outward emotion. I must confess, however, that several times during the reading, that I became quite misty eyed with an ever growing lump in my throat. I can well understand how painful it must have been for you to recall the horrors of those terrible days let alone commit then to writing. I remember quite vividly the Sunday morning when the news broke here in Port Hedland. I said to Pat, "Shit Tuppence, there’s been an explosion at the Sari Club". She said, "Oh dear. I am sure it will be ok though. Probably nothing too much to worry about". "No" I replied. "There is something more sinister in this, Something more foreboding".

And surely there was, for as we stayed glued to the television and radio throughout the day the bleak news just got bleaker and bleaker. No one who was not there, as you were, could ever and will never be able to fully understand or comprehend the full extent of the atrocity perpetrated against the innocent. Especially the young. But I guess that when the broadsword of death is wielded in such a manner then age, nor gender, nor race, nor religion, is a consideration. I have never held any religious persuasions of any kind. To me it is principally all bullshit. I have though, on many occasions, remarked to Pat that should I one day feel the need then I would be swayed towards the gentle softness of the Balinese Hindu.

Perhaps because we have been coming to Bali for over twenty years and are confirmed Baliholics and have been exceptionally close to our many Balinese friends. As you so rightly express in your book that Bali is a place that you will either love or hate. If you don’t like it then you will never return. But if you love it then like a magnet you will be drawn back again and again as we have. And I might add with never one regret. I was truly repulsed when I read about the letter from the nun. Is the heads so far up the Popes bum that they cannot or will not perceive what is happening in the real world?

Your reply was so excellent and direct. But do you think she would have had the intelligence to comprehend your meaning? I thought the most compelling statement that you made was "that religions don’t commit atrocities, people do". The world should take note and stand solidly behind the wisdom of your words. No one would be more aware than you that the victims of that terrible atrocity were but cannon fodder to the despots who committed this horrible crime. It was people like you and the so many other dedicated and caring volunteers who were the foot soldiers who had to deal, so bravely, with the results of this satanistic deed. I would that the world would honour all of those whose efforts brought a little sanity and solace and dedicated help under duressful circumstances that saved so many lives with the respect that you all so richly deserve. For my part Kim, if there be a heaven and I have somehow earned a place there then I would want my place to be reserved for you, for you have surely had your share of hell here on this earth.

May I, in closing, offer my sincere thanks from one humbled human being to another, who so bravely fought injury and death in the service of so many before unknown to you so that many lives could be saved. Thank you for your wonderful book and for allowing us to share your memories, heartaches and sadly too few triumphs. But triumphs there were. Is that not true?

Kind Regards,
Bob Couzens
Port Hedland