David Paton, big damn hero, died on April 3rd. He was 94.
I take blindness kind of personally. Dr. Paton was a prominent ophthalmologist. In the early 1970s, he started thinking about blindness in developing countries: there were a lot of folks, he believed, that were losing their eyesight because of things that could be prevented or treated. But how to get doctors and training to the developing world?
He considered shipping trunks of equipment — almost the way a circus would — but that presented logistical challenges. He pondered the possibility of using a medical ship like the one that the humanitarian group Project Hope sent around the world. That was too slow for him.
“Shortly after the first moon landing in 1969, thinking big was becoming a reality,” Dr. Paton wrote.
And then a moonshot idea struck him: “Could an aircraft be the answer? A large enough aircraft could be converted into an operating theater, a teaching classroom and all the necessary facilities.”
…
This was the birth of Orbis International.
…the organization is on its third plane, an MD-10 donated by Federal Express.
From 2014 to 2023, Orbis performed more than 621,000 surgeries and procedures, according to its most recent annual report, and offered more than 424,000 training sessions to doctors, nurses and other providers.
David Thomas, of Pere Ubu and Rocket From the Tombs, and a good Cleveland boy.
Lar Park Lincoln, actress. Other credits include “Space: Above and Beyond”, “House II: The Second Story”, and “Murder, She Wrote”.