March 16, 2013

We arrived [in Accra,Ghana] from Nigeria Friday evening and stayed with Rachel’s friend, ‘Cat’. Saturday morning we took the bus to Cape Coast.  Rachel met us there.  She took us to the Cape Coast fort where we waited for her team to return from sea.  About 4 PM we returned to the hotel in Elmina. She said she had a project for me the next morning which was to scan all the notes (hand written) from the notebooks of each team member into the computer.  When we got to the hotel we set up the printer and computer to update the software and make sure it was working.  The first indication of something strange was when Rachel complained that she was getting some small shocks from the computer (she was on the cement floor with bare feet). This happened twice and she pulled the printer USB cable out of the computer.  Almost immediately she let out a cry  and said  “I can’t let go!”.  I immediately pulled the USB cable out of the printer but by that time she had already collapsed on the floor, like in a seizure.  Two of her team mates immediately began CPR.  We rushed her to the nearest hospital (all the while her teammate continued performing CPR).  The drive to the hospital was a long 20 minutes.  At the hospital, the doctor did his examination and declared our Rachel ‘BID’ (Brought in dead).