Lahja Nashuuta ONGWEDIVA – It was late at night in Walvis Bay when Alleta Ndepelila Shanghala woke up to the sound of people screaming. She had been fast asleep when the noise outside caught her attention. Curious and concerned, she left her home to see what was happening. What she found was a man bleeding... The post Untold story of Alleta Ndepelila Shanghala appeared first on New Era .
Lahja Nashuuta
ONGWEDIVA – It was late at night in Walvis Bay when Alleta Ndepelila Shanghala woke up to the sound of people screaming.
She had been fast asleep when the noise outside caught her attention. Curious and concerned, she left her home to see what was happening. What she found was a man bleeding heavily after being stabbed with a bottle.
A crowd had gathered around him, but no one was willing to help. Shanghala, a 30-year-old from Onamagogani, Epembe constituency, Ohangwena region, still groggy, stepped into the darkness to find out what was happening. It would become one of the most traumatic and defining moments of her life.
Then Shanghala stepped forward. The young student nurse, who was not even sure whether the injured man would survive, decided she could not simply stand by and watch him die.
“I saw a man bleeding. Nobody wanted to assist. First, I assessed the situation,” Shanghala recalled.
“As a student nurse, and knowing the consequences of bleeding, I asked one old lady what had happened. She told me the guy had been stabbed with a bottle.”
The situation was even more dangerous than it first appeared.
The injured man’s friend was reportedly carrying a firearm and threatening people who tried to approach him. But Shanghala was undeterred.
“If you want to kill me, you can kill me now. I’m going to help this man. Whether you want it or not, I’m going to help this man,” she told the armed man.
With that, she moved towards the bleeding stranger, a race against death. The injured man was sitting on a bench and had already lost a significant amount of blood.
No panic
Shanghala carefully lowered him from the bench and began assessing his wound.
“I didn’t panic because I had that consciousness. You know, when you’re a nurse, you don’t panic. You accept the situation and act,” she said.
She asked a woman who appeared to be the bar attendant to assist her. The woman kindly removed her shirt, which Shanghala used to apply pressure to the wound. This was a basic first-aid method to help stop the bleeding. The bleeding was severe. Shanghala applied direct pressure, pressing firmly against the wound to control the blood loss.
It worked. But just as one danger appeared to have been brought under control, another emerged.
The man stopped breathing. There was no pulse or heartbeat.
He appeared lifeless. Yet Shanghala refused to give up.
“I kept telling people, ‘This man is breathing,’ but I knew the guy was not breathing,” she said.
She feared that if the crowd realised the man had stopped breathing, they would consider him dead and refuse to transport him to hospital.
“So, I had to plan. As a nurse, you must always have a Plan B. You must be a critical thinker.”
The owner of the bar eventually brought a vehicle; with the help of Shanghala’s friend, they rushed the unconscious man to hospital.
The journey became a desperate battle between life and death.
CPR in a speeding car
Inside the speeding vehicle, Shanghala began performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).
The man had blood clots in his mouth, obstructing his airway.
Shanghala cleared the airway and continued with chest compressions and rescue breaths.
“I did this almost maybe 90 times,” she recalled.
But while fighting to keep a stranger alive, Shanghala was fighting another battle of her own.
She suffered an asthma attack.
“I experienced an asthma attack. I’m an asthma patient. My priority was to save the man; I didn’t care more about my asthma situation. My focus was on this guy,” she said. The situation inside the speeding vehicle was becoming increasingly desperate.
Shanghala continued performing CPR despite her worsening condition.
Then, suddenly, she noticed movement.
“I saw the chest moving. It was kicking. And that’s when I thanked God; the man came back to life.”
Relief
For Shanghala, it was a moment of immense relief. But there was no time to celebrate.
Her own breathing was becoming increasingly difficult.
When they finally reached the hospital, Shanghala jumped out of the vehicle and ran towards the casualty department, shouting for help.She was covered in blood.
“My T-shirt was soaked with blood everywhere, including my face,” she recalled.
The medical team immediately took over. The injured man was rushed into the theatre for emergency treatment.
Shanghala, meanwhile, was also treated after her asthma attack and the ordeal she had endured.
“I went there and they put me on oxygen quickly,” she said.
She was also given medication following the traumatic experience.
“If it wasn’t me, this man could have died,” Shanghala maintained.
Not her first
For Shanghala, however, the Walvis Bay incident was not an isolated act of courage.
Years earlier, before she had even entered the nursing profession, she had helped save a woman who had been bitten by a snake. It was around 21h00 when the woman arrived at her family’s home seeking assistance.
Shanghala accompanied her to the hospital in the back of a Toyota pickup while administering first aid along the way. When they arrived at the hospital, there was no electricity.
The woman’s condition was deteriorating.
“I said, ‘No, please. This woman, if you guys are doing that, this woman will lose her life now.’ I begged them,” she recalled.
Eventually, the woman received treatment. Shanghala stayed until she recovered and helped trace her family. Then came another incident.
Shanghala was travelling in a taxi when a woman carrying a baby collapsed in front of her.
Again, she did not walk away.
She paid the taxi fare and decided to take the woman to hospital. “I told the taxi driver, ‘Okay, you can go. I’m going to take this woman to the hospital.’”
She administered first aid, took care of the baby and transported the woman to the hospital with the assistance of the police.
The woman eventually regained consciousness.
Pain
Perhaps the most painful irony in Shanghala’s story is that the young woman who has repeatedly used her knowledge to save lives is currently unable to complete the very studies that would allow her to do so professionally.
She is a student nurse – she is currently at home because she cannot afford her tuition fees.
“I’m not yet a nurse. I’m just a student nurse, and I have been denied and chased out of school because I can’t afford to pay for my studies,” she said.
For someone who has repeatedly found herself at the centre of life-and-death situations, being unable to complete her nursing education is a particularly painful reality.
Shanghala is seeking financial assistance or any available programme that could help her return to her studies.
Her motivation is simple.
“I just want to save people’s lives.”
She believes Namibia needs more healthcare professionals who are passionate about their work.
“According to what I see, in the Namibian healthcare system, most people are not passionate about this career,” she said.
The post Untold story of Alleta Ndepelila Shanghala appeared first on New Era.
