And now the rest of the story

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As Paul Harvey would say...and now the rest of the story.....When I wrote to you about going to Wenchi I purposely left off a part of that trip. After eating dinner in Weslio we were about 30 min out of town when I looked up and a small boy ran directly in front of our minibus. The driver instinctively swerved to miss him or we would have killed him on impact. The driver cranked the wheel as hard as he could to the right and we plunged into a ditch at a very high rate of speed, went up an embankment and then hit a fence. The driver had his seatbelt on but unfortunately there weren't any seatbelts in the seats that Lauren (the English teacher from the midwife college) and I were sitting in. Lauren was sitting in the bench seat behind the driver and I was in the seat behind her. As soon as I saw the boy right in front of our minibus (van) and the driver yanking on the wheel I knew that it was going to be very bad. By the grace of God we were not killed.

There was a bar on the top of the seat in front of me that I was holding onto that I gripped as we went down into the ditch. This saved me from being dangerously hurt. When the van came to a stop I was so happy because 1) I was alive 2) that I could stand up and didn't feel that bad. However when I asked Lauren if she was ok, she said no, that her back hurt very bad. About that time the locals had descended on our van and yanked open the side door. They were all pushing forward to see the foreigners inside. I had to keep pushing them out and trying to help Lauren at the same time. When she said that her back her very bad I called Annette (the dean of the midwife college) and asked her what to do. In the meantime I was asking the locals what happened to the driver? They said that he had run off. Lauren was in so much pain that she was trying to lie on her side or stomach to relieve the excruciating pain. One of the locals kept pressing me to decide what to do because he thought we should move her right away. Finally, knowing that our driver had left, I said, ok, we will move her to the hospital. They flagged down another minibus and I had to promise them that I would pay him 115 birr when we arrived. One of the locals picked up Lauren and carried her to the minibus. I sat facing backwards in the van so that Lauren could lie in the second seat and her head rested on my knees. The driver tore off at a ridiculous speed and I was yelling at him to slow down that God had saved us from one accident and that we didn't want to die along the way. Lauren kept asking me to pray for her so I did along with sing her songs to keep her mind off the pain.
When we arrvied back in Weliso (thank God they had a hospital built there 7 years ago because otherwise it would have been another 1 1/2 drive to Addis) at the hospital they didn't even have a ramp to push the stretcher down to. So once again they had to pick her up and put her on the stretcher. Lauren screamed in pain and I was out of mind to try and figure out how we could alleviate the pain for her.

Once in the ER we asked for morphine for her right away however I don't think there were any Dr's on staff. Luckily Annette knew some of the Dr's on staff there as well as the Sisters that run this Catholic hospital so eventually Dr Fabio showed up. They did an ultrasound to determine if there was any internal bleeding. There wasn't. Then they took her down to the xray wing to determine what was going on with her back as well as her left ankle was swollen. This point she had feeling in both of her legs.

It was at this point that I knew that I needed some medical attention. The back of my right jeans was torn and there was a laceration back there. My jaw was swollen and bruised from hitting the bar on the seat in front of me. Thank God I didn't break any teeth or my jaw. But most of all my tailbone region was very sore. I land on a bed in the ER while Lauren was in xray. When she was finished one of the Sisters (she was from Argentina and so kind to us) came and took me down to the ward where they had admitted Lauren. There weren't any private rooms available and so she was in an open ward with 10 beds. They wanted to admit me but I just knew i would get any sleep if I stayed there and didn't feel that I warranted any medical attention.
Dr. Fabio came back with the news that Lauren's left ankle was broken and that her first lumbar in her spine was smashed and the other verbetra by it were out of alignment. She would need back surgery.

By now the driver along with the owner of the van had shown up at the hospital. The driver had gone to the police for help that's why we couldn't find him. They were very helpful and felt very bad about the accident.

The hospital also has a campus where they train nurses and health officials so the Sisters had a room that I could stay in. I was able to take a shower and tried to lie down.
I had grabbed both of our bags when we left the van however during the crash Lauren's bag shifted and I think her wallet was on top. When I went to look for it at the hospital it was gone. Her travel insurance card was in it. She really cried when she heard this. I'm sure that the locals cleaned out the van once we left. I had a difficult time sleeping, not only because of the pain, but also because it was so windy outside it was rattling the windows all night long.

One of the Sisters came and woke me up around 8:30 to talk to the driver again. I told her to send them back to the van to try and find Lauren's wallet. I took a cup of tea with me and Barbara Kwast (a famous midwife who happened to be at the hospital) took me down to see Lauren. Lauren had been in pain most of the night and supposedly they had been giving her pain medication but it wasn't helping at all.

Annette showed up around 10 am. She conferred with the Dr's and took charge of the situation. They said that Lauren needed to be medivac'd out of the country. They were in the process of arranging an ambulance to take her into Addis and then to another country (it all depends on what the travelers insurance determined).
Finally around 2:30 Annette was able to confirm that they hadn't given Lauren any pain medication at all. So she finally received some after 20 hours and instantly felt some relief. Annette stayed with Lauren in Weliso and sent me back to Addis with the driver. Once we came upon the accident scene I asked Daniel (the driver) to stop so I could take some pictures. Everything seemed so surreal.

I tried to lie down in the back seat of the SUV but I was very nervous driving back to Addis for fear of another accident. Daniel is a very cautious driver but its the people and the animals that you can't control drifting out into traffic. I arrived around 5 pm and laid down for awhile to rest.

I found out that Lauren was being flown to Tel Aviv, Israel and not the US as we had hoped. The Korean hospital sent an ambulance on Monday and a Kenyan medical plane came to the Addis airport and picked her up around 8 pm that night. She had surgery this morning in Israel and her parents were going to arrive around 5 pm in Tel Aviv. Fortunately we were able to send a nurse along with Lauren in the plane so that she wouldn't be alone. Please keep Lauren in your prayers. This is going to be a long haul for her and her future is unknown right now.

As for me, besides a badly bruised jaw (and feeling like I have TMJ again) I had the laceration on the back of my right leg and the issue of having a difficult time sitting down comfortably. I went to a local clinic yesterday to try and get an xray. The Dr on duty said that I needed to drink castor oil and come back the next day. I told him that I wasn't going to drink any castor oil, that we didn't need to do that in the US. He shrugged his shoulders and said that the radiologist wasn't on duty anyway that day. So we drove to another clinic where for 90 birr (about $10 dollars!) I was given an xray. Although the technican was insisting that I need to disrobe when I was only getting an xray of my tailbone! As you can believe I told him off! And I won on that issue. He took the xrays and we waited about 30 minutes and he handed me the results from the radiologist. Of course I couldn't read the entire message and he scoffed at me for not being able to read it however he washed his hands of the situation because he's only the technican.

So, today, Tuesday I met with Paul and Lila Balisnky who had been missionaries in Ethiopian for 38 years and just returned two weeks ago to teach in the college through June. We have a connection through my church. Annette ended up joining us and so we had a wonderful time of fellowship together.

Each day I feel stronger. Everyone at the Fistula hospital have been very helpful. Annette arranged for me to meet with Dr Catherine Hamlin (one of the founders of the hospital and who is going strong at 84 years old!) We had tea with her and her son Richard and she read my xray. She said it wasn't a very good xray however she thought there might be something there (possible hairline fracture) and so she said that I should have another xray taken when I arrive in the States. She wrote me a letter to give to the airlines asking them to upgrade me to business class so that I can lie down for the duration of the flight or it will be very difficult for me to sit that long. I'm crossing my fingers that this can happen.

This accident has not deterred my love for this country or its people. I could just have easily had a car accident in the States. God has spared my life and so He must still have plans for me that He will reveal to me in His time. Maybe it will be to come back and do further work here, only God knows.
Continue to pray for Lauren and I. I will arrive back in MN on Wed. I have not told my children any of this yet because I don't want to have them worry needlessly.

And that's.........the rest of the story. : - )

Kristin

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