Sometimes Yerba Buena's patients develop special relationships with the staff. Manuela, whose case was reported by Dr. Butler in the June, l967 issue of the Newsletter, was such an individual:
"An emergency for you; is bleeding." Arriving in the clinic, we saw that it was not the anticipated drunk with gunshot or machete wounds, which comprise most of our night work here, but a little Chamula girl with a blood-soaked bandage on her head. Rather than attempt a repair at midnight by a smoky lamp, we put on another bandage to check bleeding for the night.
Next day, l0-year-old Manuela's "Tata" (father) furnished blood for her. The first dressing in the morning revealed all of the scalp gone from the forehead to the neck. Apparently she had come too near a fan of an engine at the Zaragoza oil well. While Manuela, like her "meh," Chamula mother, understood but a few words of Spanish, she surprised us by singing in Spanish with a full, clear voice, "Mi Dios me ama" (My God Loves Me) as the blood streamed down her face. Later we applied skin grafts and let her wake up as we finished applying the grafts. Again she sang two hymns as dressings were applied, before she was fully awake. This little one has given witness of her Savior by singing many hymns to the other patients.