Christy Thompson knows her son Ryan is alive and safe — and now she’s been able to talk to him.
Ryan Thompson, 24, is among the hundreds of displaced Ross University School of Medicine students whose campus took a direct blow from Hurricane Maria on the small Caribbean island of Dominica Monday.
The Category 5 storm has left the island in shambles, “worse than a war zone,” Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit told NBC news. The death toll as of Friday in Dominica was 15.
And with no power — even emergency generators were destroyed — there is virtually no way of communication.
Ryan was able to talk to his mother for about 60 seconds Friday — all authorities would allow — to assure her of his safety. It was the first time his mother had heard from him since Monday’s storm.
Before that, Ryan sent a series of messages to his mother, warning her he likely would be incommunicado for several days afterward.
Christy learned Wednesday her son had checked in with university officials, notifying them he survived.
With the island among many in ruins from Maria and Hurricane Irma, emergency crews are taxed. The female students were set to be evacuated off the island Friday via charter boat. The boys, Ryan included, were slated to be taken off the island today.
The students will be ferried to St. Lucia, another small island to the north, then flown to Miami.
From there, Christy expects her son to be sent home for the time being.
Ross University has offered to pay the transportation costs for all of the displaced students.
DOMINICA LIES in the eastern Caribbean Sea, with a population of about 75,000 on an island about half the size of Allen County.
Ryan is a 2011 Iola High School graduate. He later earned a degree at Pittsburg State University and then worked for a year under Dr. Mindy Garner, an internal medicine specialist in Pittsburg.
He enrolled at Ross University in Dominica in August 2016. His schooling there was scheduled to finish in December, and was keeping his career options open going forward. “He likes internal medicine, but he hasn’t decided yet,” his mother said. “Now, we don’t know what’s going to happen.”
The episode has left Christy, a first-grade teacher at Jefferson Elementary School, emotionally drained.
