It took just two dollars for someone to amputate my life.

• Author: Holtz, Marianne
• Position: Landmine victim

"Landmines are one of the most horrible scourges to infect the earth. This fact was brought home to me in a most personal way on the 29th of October 1995 - the day my life was changed forever when the small truck I was riding in struck a landmine", says Marianne Holtz, an American nurse who has worked in Somalia, Southern Sudan, Rwanda and Zaire. The blast (photograph on previous page) occurred when she was working for the American Refugee Committee as nurse - coordinator for a hospital project in Mugunga Camp. She suffered the loss of both legs below the knees and other injuries.

Ms. Holtz, who is 58, currently writes and speaks on the problem of landmines and is a volunteer with Landmine Survivors Network.

It was a lovely day in eastern Zaire, one of the most beautiful places on earth. I had been back in Zaire just seven weeks, working as nurse-coordinator for the American Refugee Committee, in Mugunga Camp for Rwandan refugees near Goma. A co-worker and I had driven out of town to spend a few hours in the countryside before starting a Sunday afternoon of work in our medical supply storeroom in Goma. I remember passing Kibumba Camp where I had worked six months previously and thinking about the remarkable changes that had taken place in the camp since the refugees arrived in July 1994. Suddenly, the world went black and I recall only a voice in the darkness asking my blood type - nothing more, until about four days later. I slowly awakened and hurt so very badly. I saw white tiles on the ceiling and realized I was in a bed. I had to be in a hospital, but did not know where. Voices were speaking Swahili, which I know only a little, and English, which is my language. I realized I must be in Nairobi Hospital, but how? Why? What was wrong? Why did I hurt so much? I looked around - plastic tubes were going in and out of my body almost everywhere. I couldn't speak - my jaws were wired shut - couldn't hear well, and my vision was blurred. I tried to look around, but couldn't move. Worst of all, when I looked down the bed, something was dreadfully wrong. There was no rise in the bedcovers where my feet should have been.

Little by little, I was able to think clearly and come to understand what had happened. I had become one of the 30,000 who are maimed or die as a result of landmine blasts each year. Like most of the other victims, it happened without warning, while I was going about the most innocent of activities - not endangering anyone, not...