Email from Ali­son Thomp­son sent to her par­ents in Suther­land Shire (Sydney):

Hi mum and dad — I won’t be around when they announce my award on Jan­u­ary 26th.

I am with Sean Penn, diana jenk­ins, Oscar and 15 doc­tors embed­ded in the 82
air­bourne ( USA) Dante would describe it as hell here. There is no food and
wAter and hun­dreds dying daily. The aid is all bot­tle­necked and not reach­ing
here . The other day i assisted with ampu­ta­tion ( hold­ing them down) while they
used a saw to cut a young boys leg off with no pain killers. Today I went with
a strike force and army patrol in hum­mers into the streets and walked 5 miles
through the camps set up on every street cor­ner ..sewage and bod­ies stench is
every­where. As i attend to a patient 30 peo­ple crowd around me and it’s hard to
breath. I nearly fainted today as the sewage smell went straight down my
throat. I went white and dizzy but couldn’t sit down as sewage is run­ning
through the streets. There is much infec­tion and it feels like the job is too
big. No antibi­otics anywhere.

Good news, today our new york doc­tors evac­u­ated 18 patients with spinal
injuries out to miami and we’re all so excited. Our mash unit is in the 82 air
base over­look­ing a refugee camp of over 50000 peo­ple. The refugees start
singing Chris­t­ian songs at 4 am and line up for food until the army hands it
out at 8 am ( thats if there is any food) On the first night I was in the
nearby jun­gle camp­ing under the stars with my team and woke up to the beau­ti­ful music draw­ing me to them. I thought it was a church and we went to find it and came across the 82 air­bourne camp and the refugee camp. ( that’s how we ended up here) as it wasn’t safe to stay where we were even though we had our own secu­rity force.

We are totally self suffient with food gas and med­i­cines and have a pri­vate
donor (Diana Jenk­ins who was a refugee in camps in Bosnia as a child — her
fam­ily died of star­va­tion in the camps. ) Sean Penn is here purely as a
vol­un­teer and is cut­ting through bureau­cracy to get aid mov­ing and food water
and med­i­cines to the peo­ple. There is no agenda but to save lives. Heli­copters
fly over head and it feels like viet­nam. That night 50,000 peo­ple sung me to
sleep and they sing every night for the world to save them. There is always
hope but she’s not here right now.

Ali­son xxx

My writ­ing is a mess as it’s on iPhone and keeps chang­ing my words and the
gen­er­a­tor is on for a few hours but I know it’s impor­tant to tell the world.
Please send to any press who may call or fam­ily and friends.