Testimonials

Injured Missionary Jets Home From Russia

Minister Clifford Lyons of Oklahoma routinely travels to northern Russia to take humanitarian aid to hospitals, schools and individuals, but it was he who needed help last December when a car ran a red light and hit him on a street in Murmansk, Russia.

He says, "I remember lying in the street quite a while. I couldn't move my arm to get my identification, so I took my chin and kept pointing with my chin to my black book in my pocket. Someone finally got my black book and got my driver's license."

Cliff was taken to a local hospital, where he was treated for a broken left arm, a broken left leg, a fractured right leg, a severely dislocated shoulder and a concussion. Unbeknownst to doctors at the time, he also had a fractured pelvis. "I had two terrible bruises above my eyes," he says. "I couldn't see myself for a few days, but when I did look into a mirror, I was a mess."

His wife, who arrived at the hospital a short while later, agrees. "He couldn't do anything. He was just dead weight," recalls Martha Lyons. "They said he had to be in the hospital for a month, and I knew there was no way I could do what needed to be done for him at that hospital in Russia. The doctors were good, but they just didn't have the facilities he needed. It was so primitive. I had to bring my own water, and there wasn't even a trash can in the room. It was such a mess, and they wouldn't let me spend the night in the room."

Fortunately, the Lyons had purchased a MedjetAssist membership several months earlier. Martha called MedjetAssist, and soon, plans were underway to bring Cliff home to Muskogee, OK.

"We had a conference call between me, the nurse from MedjetAssist and the English-speaking hospital representative," Martha says. "When the people at the hospital realized that MedjetAssist would pick up all the costs and that there would be no repercussions or trouble for the hospital, they became extremely cooperative."

For the cost of their $275 MedjetAssist membership, the Lyons were able to fly home on an emergency flight that otherwise would have cost about $60,000. The roughest part of the trip, according to Cliff, was the ambulance ride from the Russian hospital to the jet. He was trussed up with casts on three limbs and didn't settle down until he was aboard the MedjetAssist medically dedicated aircraft.

"Looking back," he says now, "I don't know how I stayed on that stretcher for the 15-hour flight from Murmansk to Muskogee, except to say that the crew took good care of me." Cliff and his wife, along with a crew of four pilots, a nurse and a respiratory therapist, touched down in the Lyon's hometown within minutes of their predicted arrival time. Cliff, who preaches in Murmansk as well as doing missionary work there, is recovering well and is already planning his return to Russia.

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