A California organization is asking residents of economically distressed Pitcairn to help a woman 5,550 miles away on economically deprived Pitcairn Island.

The islander was severely injured in a boating accident on Dec. 5. But the borough is coping with a Dec. 12 fire that damaged two houses on Third Street and displaced three families.

"I'm thinking of our own family," said Pitcairn Mayor Betsy Stevick. "When you've had three families burned out, charity begins at home."

But some local residents, she said, might want to help the accident victim on the namesake island.

In the island accident, a 40-foot longboat capsized in heavy seas as it ferried cargo from a supply ship.

"The currents are tricky as you're coming back," said Herbert Ford, director of the Pitcairn Islands Study Center in Angwin, Calif. "Too far to the right, too far to the left or too far straight ahead, and you're on the rocks."

A rogue wave crashed into the longboat and smashed it onto the rocks. Four crewmen dove overboard and the load of diesel fuel, lumber and other supplies spilled into the South Pacific.

Pitcairn Island has only two longboats, and they are its lifelines to infrequent supply ships. So islanders tried to save the foundered craft. They managed to rope it, but then the hawser snapped and recoiled, knocked down Darralyn Griffiths, 28, and nearly severed her right arm.

She was patched up, doped up and shipped out on the Braveheart for a two-and-a-half-day sail to Mangareva, Gambier Islands. From there she was air-lifted to a hospital in Tahiti 1,200 miles from home. Later, she was transferred to a medical facility in New Zealand.

Griffiths will be hospitalized for three months for nerve grafts and recuperation. She is expected to regain 90 percent use of her arm.

Most of the lost cargo was destined for a new home for Darralyn Griffiths and her husband, Turi. It was valued at about $29,000. The cost of the emergency health care is unknown.

Ford also has appealed by letter to 200 "friends of Pitcairn Island." Donations, which are tax deductible should be sent to the Pitcairn Islands Study Center, Pacific Union College, 1 Angwin Ave., Angwin, CA, 94508, and marked "Pitcairn accident relief."

Pacific Union College has had contact with the island since 1882. The Napa Valley college is affiliated with the Seventh Day Adventist Church. Members of the conservative Protestant denomination introduced their teachings to the islanders, and by 1890 most of the residents had converted from the Church of England.

Pitcairn Island is named for midshipman Robert Pitcairn, who spotted it from a passing ship in 1767. In 1790, Fletcher Christian and other mutineers of the HMS Bounty, searching for a safe hiding place, settled on the uninhabited island.

The grave of John Adams, the last of the mutineers to die, is tended by Darralyn Griffiths, the accident victim.

Pitcairn has been romanticized as an island paradise, but in reality it is isolated, with a subsistence economy. BBC correspondent Simon Winchester has described it as an "amiable rural slum of muddy lanes and small shacks." The population has dwindled to about 50. Most are descendants of the mutineers.

Locally, Pitcairn was named for Robert Pitcairn, an executive of the Pennsylvania Railroad who, according to local lore, was related to the Robert Pitcairn of island fame. In the mid-1800s he developed rail yards along Turtle Creek that eventually became among the largest in the world.

Conrail closed the Pitcairn yards in 1979. Stores have closed or moved. The population dropped to 3,689 by the 2000 census. The median income was $25,687, or about two-thirds of the county average.

The Pitcairn Island connection used to be well known, Stevick said, but since Pitcairn High School closed in 1958, fewer people have learned the history.

The borough cannot get involved in the solicitation, she said, and she is unwilling to collect money.

But there are still locals who keep up on Pitcairn Island, Stevick said. "There might be someone who is genuinely interested in contributing."