Cook: Free dental, vision and medical services offered this weekend

David Cook

Today's column is for the desperate: the folks willing to drive 300 miles through the dead of night just to get a tooth pulled.

Or a new pair of glasses.

Or to see a dentist, for the first time ever.

Or to get a mammogram, when paying for one would mean no food on the table.

There's hope.

"We'll relieve some of the pain and suffering," said Bob Nevil.

Nevil is a physical therapist at Center for Sports Medicine and Orthopaedics, one of the finest men I've ever met and, most importantly, the organizer of this year's Remote Area Medical Volunteer Corps, or RAM.

Started years ago by an adventurer named Stan Brock (more on him in a bit), RAM is this loaves-and-fishes mix of medicine and compassion: since 1992, thousands of RAM volunteers have given free medical, dental and vision care to hundreds of thousands of Americans, especially in Appalachia -- with no questions asked and not one cent received.

"Free," said Nevil. "You just show up."

Six days from now -- Saturday and on Sunday -- RAM is offering its 2014 clinic at Ooltewah High School.

"They'll start arriving at 3 a.m. on Saturday," Nevil said.

It is like a mini-hospital: Nevil's got more than 60 big-hearted local professionals -- doctors, nurses, dentists -- offering their help, along with students and JROTC cadets from Ooltewah, dental students from Buffalo and more students from the Southern College of Optometry in Memphis.

In fact, RAM is full of volunteers.

"I want to make sure enough patients know," Nevil said.

In 2012, when RAM was held at Camp Jordan, folks began arriving Friday as the sun set. By 3 a.m., there were 200 lined up. Some slept in their cars. Others couldn't sleep at all.

The woman with multiple sclerosis. The mother with the bum tooth. The child with the cavities. No one with insurance.

"Some have never seen a dentist," Nevil said.

In 2012, the nearly-400 volunteers provided $370,000 in medical services to nearly 900 patients -- cleaning 105 mouths, extracting 1,452 teeth, filling 253 cavities, giving away 363 pairs of glasses.

For people receiving care, Saturday night seems much different than Saturday morning.

"They're smiling because the pain is gone," said Nevil. "It's like taking the thorn out of the lion's paw."

At 3 a.m., Nevil and others will pass out numbers to all those people waiting in the parking lot. At 6 a.m., they let the first 50 through the door.

Folks fill out one of three forms -- medical, vision, dental -- and then are sorted based on need. The process repeats itself Sunday.

Glasses are made on site. Nurses check blood pressure and patient history. Mammograms and pap smears are done in private, curtained rooms. Referrals are made, if needed. Education is given on healthy lifestyles.

"We'll have 40 dental chairs," said Nevil.

RAM was begun in 1985 by Stan Brock, who was living and working on a large cattle ranch in Guyana, on the north coast of South America. In the deep forest and jungles, Brock witnessed the suffering caused by lack of medical care.

After later helping co-host the popular TV show "Wild Kingdom," Brock started RAM so that people in remote parts of the world could have medical care.

Brock, who'll be here for RAM, is both spartan and saint.

"He claims zero in terms of net worth," said Nevil. "He sleeps on the floor, exercises four to six hours a day, and he's in his early-to-mid 70s."

Brock is a bush pilot, rain forest expert and humanitarian, crazy enough to wrestle anacondas -- "Your only chance is to squeeze it by the throat with one hand, and try and unwrap the coils with the other," he writes in his autobiography -- and also start an international health clinic.

"My dreams of airborne doctors flying into remote regions developed during life there [in Guyana]," Brock writes in "All the Cowboys Were Indians."

For Nevil, who's volunteered at 13 clinics, RAM is a double blessing: folks in great need receive care, which boomerangs back into blessings for those providing it.

"We might be that turning point in their life," he said, "so that they see hope in an otherwise hopeless situation."

Contact David Cook at dcook@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6329. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter at DavidCookTFP.