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Old connections bring new hope to children injured in a devastating disaster

Jim Rocha, director of Planning Strategy & Compliance with Tampa Electric.

When Jim Rocha found out Guatemala’s Fuego Volcano had erupted in a devastating explosion earlier this month, it was far more than just the latest terrible headline in the news – it was a call to action.

In what could seem like a lifetime ago in his career and his company, Tampa Electric’s director of Planning Strategy & Compliance was with the now-divested TECO Guatemala. Though TECO formally ended its business connections in the Latin American nation in 2012, friendships remained. And if a test of friendship is how friends help each other in times of greatest need, Rocha’s role was to help connect young burn victims with the unique burn care that the famed hospital provides.

“With Shriners, it’s all about, ‘What can you do on an individual basis when you have an obligation to help people?’” he said. “I’m a former potentate [president] from 2007 with the Tampa Shriners chapter, and I kept up with a lot of friends and Shriners in Guatemala from my time there with TECO. From Tampa, it was a matter of making some calls and assisting Shriners in Guatemala to help children with critical injuries get the kind of help that Shriners is uniquely able to provide.”

He added, “The real heroes are the emergency responders on the ground and the medical personnel at the Shriners Hospital for Children in Galveston working tirelessly to treat some very serious injuries.”

The Shriners worked with the U.S. Embassy to airlift six children with life threatening burns and guardians in U.S. Air National Guard transport planes and flown to the Shriners burn hospital in Texas. While their recovery will continue for years, Rocha said the important thing is that their healing will begin with the best pediatric burn care possible.

“These [medical staff members] are some of the best at what they do and right now it’s exactly what these children need,” Rocha said. “The U.S. has seen such advances in burn prevention that it’s easy to forget that for other people living in impoverished places around the world – including some of the communities worst-hit by Fuego – can be especially vulnerable. Of course anyone is vulnerable when the threat is a nearby volcano, which is why doing anything we could to help was a no-brainer.”

U.S. Ambassador to Guatemala Luis Arreaga, second from right, talks to officials at the airfield where children injured in the Fuego Volcano were airlifted to the Shriners hospital in Galveston, Texas. (Photo credit: U.S. Embassy Guatemala.)

As rescue and medical crews in Guatemala face ongoing challenges like continued volcanic activity and bad weather, the situation remains dire. Reports say Fuego has claimed more than 100 lives, while as many as 200 people are still missing.

For six children, joined by guardians, the help that Rocha played a small part in facilitating for them could be the key to giving them a chance to move past the kind of disaster that Tampa area residents may find hard to imagine. You can do your part by donating to help Shriners help more victims of the volcano.

For Rocha, the amazing airlift rescue isn’t hard to imagine at all.

“Shriners exists to help children in need, but it’s all part of a larger continuum of people of all kinds who care and want to help,” he said. “An extraordinary disaster like a volcano demands an extraordinary response, and I’m fortunate to have ties to extraordinary people with Shriners, at TECO and with many whose great work may go unnoticed by the news – but not by those who need help the most.”

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