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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - An impoverished city in Mexico celebrated the arrival of an ambulance to their city last month thanks to the efforts of Yellowknife's Barry Talbot.

Last May Talbot got the ambulance he planned to donate to the city of Obregon as far as the U.S./Mexican border.

Yellowknife's Barry Talbot hands off the keys to an ambulance he donated to the Rotary Club in Obregon, Mexico. The ambulance made the trip to Mexico from northern Canada and will be donated to the Red Cross. - photo courtesy of Barry Talbot

Due to a mix up with the paperwork, the vehicle had to be left with the Rotary Club in Nogales, Arizona.

During the last week of September, Talbot got an email from Obregon's Rotary Club notifying him the paperwork had been approved. On Monday, Oct. 6 he flew to Tuscon, Arizona, and three friends from Obregon drove up to meet Talbot.

"They picked me up and we drove to Nogales, which is the town right on the border," said Talbot. There was a minor snag when the bond Talbot had purchased on the last trip, a guarantee that the ambulance would not be left in the United States, was lost. He said he left it with the Rotary Club in Obregon so if Talbot couldn't make another trip, someone else could go pick up the ambulance.

"My head said 'don't leave the bond'. But I reluctantly gave it to them. I said guard it with your life because I can't get the ambulance out (of the U.S.) without it," said Talbot.

He said on Monday when he arrived in Tuscon he checked with the Rotary Club and the bond was missing.

"I was a little stressed," he said.

Talbot was able to get a faxed copy of the bond from the broker who issued the bond originally. Thanks to some understanding U.S. customs agents he was allowed to take the ambulance across the border, despite not having the stamp on the bond that was given in Sweetgrass, Montana.

"There was no problem with the Mexican paperwork this time. There were four individuals from the governor's office that came up from Hermosillo and met us there and just walked us through," said Talbot.

The ambulance was officially delivered on Thursday, Oct. 9 to the Rotary Club who will be giving it to the Red Cross there.

"They had a big party and celebration," said Talbot.

The city of roughly 600,000 now has a total of four ambulances.

"There were five families here in Yellowknife that gave me money to buy supplies down there for the ambulance. When I got there the Rotary Club informed me the Mexican government is going to fund all the supplies for it," said Talbot.

Some of the donated money was then spent on sports equipment for a school in the small village of Bataconica. "They had nothing. They used like a tin can for a soccer ball," he said of Escuela del Redentor, or School of the Redeeming One.

In addition to the ambulance more wheelchairs are going to be delivered next March. During his last trip to Obregon, 260 wheelchairs were delivered to needy individuals, some who had been bed-bound for years.

Talbot and five other Yellowknife families raised the money that will go to the Wheelchair Foundation and delivered to Obregon and surrounding villages.

"Last time we had to turn people away," said Talbot of the last wheelchair delivery.

In particular, there was one young girl who got there too late to receive one. Her mother was promised there would be more.

"The Rotary Club thinks with this last container it should be enough for the people in that area," he said.