Taxis light up remote airstrip in Peru for medivac flight

Their lights blaring in the night, hundreds of taxis lined an unlit airstrip in a jungle region of Peru so an emergency medivac plane with three very sick patients could take off.

All three survived after the 300-odd drivers of motorcycles fashioned into small taxis with compartments for passengers heeded a call Wednesday night from a radio station to race to the 800-meter airstrip in Contamana, in one of Peru's poorest regions, Peruvian media reported Thursday.

The airstrip is not equipped for nocturnal flights because it has no lights. The patients were a woman and her newborn, both with serious problems after delivery, and a man with a tropical disease.

"We have always been people with a heart," said Adolfo Lobo, the radio presenter who put out the call for help.

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/afp/130404/taxis-light-remote-airstrip-peru-medivac-flight-0