Zip-line mishap in Turkey
03 August 2011
I suppose it was inevitable. Visiting a hospital in a foreign country. Given that we have a frequent visitor card at the Alameda Hospital emergency room, it was just a matter of time. Our extensive experience in setting up ziplines went awry. Bummerville it had to happen above jagged rocks - the kind of rocks that you can barely touch they are so sharp. But, they have set these up often and then Leo dared to go and it was fine. I was relieved and Uncle Gary was impressed. RJ was next and jumped off. He was starting to zip toward the water, but before he got close the thin line used to pull back the zipline got tangled in the jagged rocks making for a forced stop. Slow motion. RJ falling like a skydiver, arms outstretched, directly onto the evil rocks. He bounced and then lay there. I dove in the water to get over to him. RJ said some bad words - yay - he was talking! The gullet boat next to us came w/ a dinghy. They had two doctors on board. Gingerly we loaded RJ into the dinghy and went to their boat. They examined him and pressed around to check for internal injuries or broken bones. RJ was unable to stand and had scrapes all over and a big gash on his leg. We needed to get to a hospital. We could take an ambulance which would take about 1 1/2 hours or our boat which would take four hours. It didn't appear that there were internal injuries, maybe broken bones, so we took the latter route. We motored Azure II to the anchorage, loaded RJ in the dinghy, carried him to a taxi and then off to the hospital.
We could go to the "English" hospital or the public hospital. The taxi driver recommended the public hospital, more doctors, less money. I went back and forth and decided I would start w/ the public hospital and if it seemed like we would wait forever or it was unacceptable for any reason, I would go the the small tourist hospital. (We have catastrophic insurance - I was hopeful that we wouldn't be using it.) Maramis Hospital looked like it was built in the 60's and not updated since. There was no fancy entrance, not really even a waiting room, just a few semi injured Turkish people standing around a hallway and desk. There was no fluency in English, but a few people could get by and all were kind. We were seen w/in 10 minutes, x-rays taken and analyzed by the orthopedic w/ in 30 minutes . They said no broken bones, wrote a prescription (they couldn't explain in English what it was, but I suppose pain meds), and sent us on our way after paying 160 Turkish Lire (about $100.) It was now 9:00 pm at night - it was a long day. I had the x-rays and used the VHF radio to catch our ride back to the boat. We decided to wait until morning and see how everything was before possibly going to another doctor. It's been four days now. RJ can finally put weight on his most injured leg and his scrapes are healing as well. I couldn't write this until I knew he was getting better. Whew - we were soo lucky.