Craig Fisher - Stranded in Gambo

Stranded in Gambo - Rtn Craig Fisher

Craig Fisher, a fellow Rotarian from the Luton Someries Rotary Club,gave a fascinating talk entitled " Stranded in Gambo".

Craig commenced by giving us an insight of his career and how on the 9^th September and how he flew out of Heathrow  on a morning schedule flight to the USA to start a comprehensive tour of the USA the fateful day the planes smashed into the twin towers buildings in New York.

Everthing was going to plan until half way across the Atlantic the Flight Captain told the passengers a major incident had happened and they were diverting to Newfoundland. The tense atmosphere was followed up with the information the problem was a plane had flown into the twin towers.

The aircraft had to expel half a tank full of fuel before landing with 36 other trans-Atlantic jets at small island airport and nearly everyone had assumed it would be some crank who had flown a small private plane into the towers and the matter would be quickly resolved. We were stunned to learn on landing the appalling magnitude, scale and seriousness of the terrorist attack. It quickly became obvious everyone was going to have to stay on the Island for some time and we would all have to adapt to the situation. This situation eventually lasted 6 days.

Craig painted a picture of a tightly knit community who lived on an isolated Island the size of Wales, resembling Scotland who were suddenly confronted with such a large group of people of all ages requiring feeding and accommodating. He spoke to great lengths how everyone became very close with the community housing the elderly and passengers who had health problems whilst the rest including him were housed in Churches and the Salvation Army centre who had to sleep on pews and makeshift hospital stretchers to sleep on. Food and drink was at a premium and the local supermarket was soon devoid of nearly all necessities and the local community soon shared their own food with everyone plus being a fishing island supply superb range fish to supplement the food supply.

As the time came to depart after 6 gruelling days Craig told us he has maintained a close bond with a number of passengers and residents and is in regular contact with them via on Facebook.

A talk which illustrated how in times of adversity how a very mixed group of people could bond.

Owen