The misery of the man who carries acacia wood for hire

Nearly 20 days after brain surgery, Mr. Bui Van Lam, Hamlet 4, Thanh Tung Commune, Thanh Chuong District, Nghe An Province, is still unconscious. Mr. Lam was the victim of a work accident that left many people in Thanh Tung Commune still in shock.

That day, November 9, like every other day, Mr. Lam and some people in the commune went to work loading acacia wood. His job was to stand on the truck and arrange the acacia wood. When the crane lifted the wood onto the truck, the cable suddenly broke, hitting Mr. Lam, causing him to fall to the ground and become unconscious.

Relatives rushed Mr. Lam to Nghe An General Hospital for emergency treatment. There, Mr. Lam was diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury and required emergency surgery.

The 4-hour surgery saved Lam's life, but a piece of the cerebral cortex had to be cultured and reattached when it was stable.

The first time she left her hometown to go to the city was also the time she took her husband to the emergency room. Ms. Nguyen Thi Binh sat outside the operating room, her eyes blankly looking toward the operating room door.

Ms. Binh said that both husband and wife were very poor, after getting married they lived separately in a hut on the edge of the village. Her husband, Mr. Lam, was disabled since childhood, had poor communication skills, lisped, and poor health, making family life even more difficult. She and her husband have 2 children, the eldest son is in 10th grade, the second daughter is in 9th grade.

Despite his poor health, Lam is very hard-working. He is gentle and honest, and does whatever people hire him to do. During the acacia wood loading season, he is paid about 300,000 VND per day. That small amount of money is almost the only source of income for his family, because his wife, Binh, is also in poor health.

When her husband had a work accident, Ms. Binh ran around everywhere, borrowing 13 million VND to bring to the hospital. Because he did not have health insurance, Mr. Lam's treatment was very expensive. That money quickly ran out, Ms. Binh rushed back to her hometown, borrowing more money to treat her husband...

Running alone between Vinh city and her hometown to take care of her husband and children, the already thin and weak woman became haggard and depressed. “My family is really miserable. We just hope my husband gets well soon so he can go home. He has been in the hospital for so long, we don’t know where to get money for treatment,” the woman with a haggard face looked at her husband lying on the hospital bed, saying as if she was about to cry.

Mr. Phan Van Dung - Chairman of Thanh Tung Commune People's Committee, Thanh Chuong District said: "The situation of Mr. Lam and Ms. Binh is very difficult. The family does not have health insurance, so Mr. Lam's work accident has made the family even more tragic. After the emergency surgery, Mr. Binh will have to have a brain transplant surgery. More than ever, Mr. Lam's family needs the support of the community and philanthropists to quickly overcome this difficulty."