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Stan Brock, Amazon adventurer who became a health-care crusader, dies at 82
There's a thread about him in the Tennessee Group too.
Obituaries
Stan Brock, Amazon adventurer who became a health-care crusader, dies at 82
By Harrison Smith
August 30 at 7:09 PM
In the rain forest and savanna of British Guiana, an accident could mean death. When Stan Brock was thrown against the side of a corral, severely injured while training a wild horse, the British-born teenager was told it would take 26 days to reach the closest doctor. It would have been easier, he later observed, for a wounded Apollo astronaut to make the three-day trip home from the moon. ... Mr. Brock remained in the wilderness, convalescing among the Wapishana Indians who taught him how to herd cattle and ride barefoot. But he also began to nurture an abiding interest in health care for secluded and underserved populations, and three decades later — in 1985 — established Remote Area Medical.
The nonprofit was intended to hold free clinics in the developing world, but soon after it started, Mr. Brock had a revelation: “There were people like the Wapishanas, who were 26 days on foot from the nearest doctor, in a place like Chicago, where there was a doctor just around the corner but they simply couldn’t afford to go there.”
Mr. Brock was 82 when he died Aug. 29 at RAM’s headquarters in Rockford, Tenn., where he slept on a grass mat next to his desk and oversaw an organization that has treated more than 740,000 people and delivered an estimated $120 million of free medical services, primarily in the United States.
At one typical clinic last year, at a fairground in Wise, Va., 1,400 volunteers treated 2,300 patients, some of whom camped out for three days to make sure they received treatment. One man needed 18 teeth pulled. Another needed help applying for a kidney transplant. Nearly all of them were part of the estimated 12.2 percent of Americans without health insurance.
....
Harrison Smith is a reporter on The Washington Post's obituaries desk. Since joining the obituaries section in 2015, he has profiled big-game hunters, fallen dictators and Olympic champions. He sometimes covers the living as well, and previously co-founded the South Side Weekly, a community newspaper in Chicago. Follow https://twitter.com/harrisondsmith
Stan Brock, Amazon adventurer who became a health-care crusader, dies at 82
By Harrison Smith
August 30 at 7:09 PM
In the rain forest and savanna of British Guiana, an accident could mean death. When Stan Brock was thrown against the side of a corral, severely injured while training a wild horse, the British-born teenager was told it would take 26 days to reach the closest doctor. It would have been easier, he later observed, for a wounded Apollo astronaut to make the three-day trip home from the moon. ... Mr. Brock remained in the wilderness, convalescing among the Wapishana Indians who taught him how to herd cattle and ride barefoot. But he also began to nurture an abiding interest in health care for secluded and underserved populations, and three decades later — in 1985 — established Remote Area Medical.
The nonprofit was intended to hold free clinics in the developing world, but soon after it started, Mr. Brock had a revelation: “There were people like the Wapishanas, who were 26 days on foot from the nearest doctor, in a place like Chicago, where there was a doctor just around the corner but they simply couldn’t afford to go there.”
Mr. Brock was 82 when he died Aug. 29 at RAM’s headquarters in Rockford, Tenn., where he slept on a grass mat next to his desk and oversaw an organization that has treated more than 740,000 people and delivered an estimated $120 million of free medical services, primarily in the United States.
At one typical clinic last year, at a fairground in Wise, Va., 1,400 volunteers treated 2,300 patients, some of whom camped out for three days to make sure they received treatment. One man needed 18 teeth pulled. Another needed help applying for a kidney transplant. Nearly all of them were part of the estimated 12.2 percent of Americans without health insurance.
....
Harrison Smith is a reporter on The Washington Post's obituaries desk. Since joining the obituaries section in 2015, he has profiled big-game hunters, fallen dictators and Olympic champions. He sometimes covers the living as well, and previously co-founded the South Side Weekly, a community newspaper in Chicago. Follow https://twitter.com/harrisondsmith