People line up early for Remote Area Medical Clinic

WISE, Va. – The people camped outside the Wise County Fairgrounds overnight Thursday weren’t seeking a new video game or Apple product, and it wasn’t Black Friday.

Yet those sleeping in tents, cars or under the stars were willing to wait a long time for something that to them, is more valuable than the latest gadget: health care.

The Remote Area Medical clinic didn’t officially start until 5 a.m. today, but people from all over the country arrived as early as Wednesday to stake out a spot in line and claim one of the 1,500 tickets handed out Thursday.

“I’ve waited two years to get dentures,” Sandra Townsend of Castlewood, Va., said Thursday. She and her husband and a friend arrived about 3:30 p.m., she said, and she had impressions of her mouth taken for dentures. She will get a new set of teeth today.

“They told me to come back at 7 a.m. Friday,” she said. “It’s well worth it.”

Last year at RAM, she slept in the car, but was better prepared with a tent this year.

Also camping were Mark and Charletta Mullins of Clintwood, Va. The Mullins family arrived on site about noon, and were able to preregister, Charletta Mullins said. “We just came early to see if we could get in earlier,” she said. “Now it’s just sit back and wait. We get to go in the gate early; all we have to do is go straight to triage and then to see a doctor.”

The pair said this is their ninth trip to RAM, and each year they get a little more sophisticated. This year, Mark Mullins rigged up a car battery to a converter, which powers a laptop, so they can watch DVDs while they wait.

The two also socialized with friends and neighbors. Charletta Mullins said she notices more people at the health clinic every year.

“The way prices are now you can’t afford insurance,” she said. “You don’t want to know the hassles we’ve been through.”

Some years, there are so many not everyone gets in.

Three years ago, Cindy Ridings of St. Charles, Va., said she arrived at 4 a.m. and couldn’t get a number. So last year and this year, she camped out the night before. She arrived about 10:30 Thursday morning with her granddaughter, and a family friend and his mother, Anthony and Mary Anne Peterson, who helped to push Ridings’ wheelchair and her granddaughter’s stroller.

“I’m hoping we’ll get in line by about 4 a.m.,” Ridings said. She had preregistered and was lined up to get a mammogram and pulmonary function test.

Also hoping to get in line early were Ashley Helton, of Bristol, Va., and Amber Rivera, of Abingdon.

“I may not go to sleep,” Rivera said. “I’ll be up there in line.”

Although it was Rivera’s first trip to RAM, Helton has been twice. She said she has camped out, and “it sucks,” but it is important to get health care.

Volunteers distributing tickets Thursday said they expected to give all of them away by 6 a.m. today.

“People pull in all night,” said Joey Ely, who is volunteering at RAM with about 30 co-workers from Wallens Ridge State Prison in Big Stone Gap, Va. “There’ll be about seven or eight of us here tonight, and we’ll stay until about 6 a.m. … at least four of us will be here at all times.”

Volunteer Jason Bryant said the prison’s warden, Bryan Watson, allows the workers to help out at RAM, in part because “our community is a poor community.”

At 8 p.m., more cars pulled in for the night, and families set up tents and cooked dinner on outdoor grills. RAM volunteers passed out water, lemonade and cookies to those getting ready to tuck in for an early start in the morning.

“Lord, you don’t know what a blessing this is,” Mark Mullins said. “There are so many people right on the poverty line. And, after being turned down so many times, this is about the only option I’ve got.”

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