Get a Death Threat? Run!

6/25/14 draft

Get a Death Threat? Run!

By

Dr. Samuel De La Pava

As told to Karen Chadwick, June, 2014

            He was finishing his medical studies in Bogata, Columbia, in 1942. Part of the requirements for graduation was to fulfill a year assignment to administer health care to a rural area that otherwise had no modern medical personnel. This was a government requirement for all medical students, known as the Medicitura Rural. On paper it seemed to be a fine way for people in remote locations to get health care, and even better, Samuel would get paid for his work.

This would be his first paycheck for his new career, and the money would be most welcome. He had come from poverty himself, and it was only by the sacrifices of his older brother, a very kind Nun, and the Brothers of ______________________ that Samuel had come this far. Far from the forced residence in a locked leper colony due to his mother’s unfortunate diagnosis of this dreaded and grossly mis-understood disease when Samuel was 4 years old.

Adversity found Samuel. At the time of his rural assignment, his country was experiencing a violent nightmare known as La Violencia. For over twenty years, two parties ruled back and forth and both had blood on their hands. A citizen was deemed either a Liberal or a Conservative, and the worst of their intense hatred for each other always erupted at voting time. How much bad luck does a fellow have to be assigned to a small village where his own sister and husband had lived but had been forced to depart because they were labeled “liberal?” As Samuel arrived, the locals quickly made the connection between Samuel and his sister, and now he was watched for any mis-step that might confirm liberal view/liberal vote.

Samuel was young and had been so focused on medical studies in Bogata that he failed to fully understand these rural passions. Fortunately, within a short time in his new position, he struck up a friendship with the local judge and this helped Samuel feel positive about the assignment. The judge was a respectable citizen, most likely a liberal, so how hard could this year assignment be?

A message was delivered to Samuel one day. The prison warden in a very remote prison 10 miles from the village needed a doctor. Would he please come to look at someone suffering with a bad wound? Samuel rented a horse and set off for the prison.

The injured man was a prisoner. As Samuel treated his wicked wound as best he could, the prisoner told him how he’d been cut so deeply in his thigh. A cruel guard had jabbed the prisoner with the blade on the tip of his rifle for no reason other than pleasure. As Samuel rode back to the village, the story of the prisoner’s unjust attack moved Samuel. Shortly he wrote a letter to the director of prisons in Bogota, attempting to bring this wrong to the light. Oh my, was this a wonderful but bad idea. It’s not easy to be a young man with high ideals. Now the trouble started.

The next week was election time. How did Samuel’s letter to Bogata find it’s way to the prison warden in the remote prison? And how did “they” determine this was clear proof that the young doctor must be a Liberal?  A message to Samuel the night before the election, “We will kill you” said it all. 

Samuel quickly realized he was a victim of honesty. He went directly to the judge’s residence to talk this over. Within an hour, they both decided on a course of action. They both packed up their belongings and left in the judge’s car that night. Better to give up your right to vote than your life.

When Samuel contacted his medical school and explained his sudden departure, the administrator fully understood and promptly re-assigned Samuel to a new village to complete his year requirement. And Lady Fortune realized what a gem she had in this young doctor, surely he would enjoy a distinguished career as a pathologist in the most prestigious cancer institute in America? Si? Si!