As much fun as we all had during our weekend in Kerala, hanging overhead was the spectre of the ride back. Our "bus" ride there had taken hours longer than anticipated, on very narrow, very scary roads. Imagine looking out the windshield, on a two lane road, and seeing four vehicles side by side coming straight at you, two of which are heavy trucks and one a large bus. No shoulders avaialble, no other lanes availablle, nothing. Imagine a similar two-lane road, where evferyone passes at all times blindly.....you are in the mountains, the road is incredible windy. You are sitting on the side opposite the driver, so on turns you can sometimes see further dowen the road than him. He tries repeatedly to pass on the outside of blind curves, where you can see there is a really really big truck coming in the other lane, and you are positive it will all be over in just a second....and all of this at night too, so add to it all the cars, carts, rickshaws that have no lights whatsoever. Anne stopped looking out the front; she just watched my face and knew from my expression the likelihood of death in the following seconds. Hmmm..no wonder everyone says "Do Not Drive at Night in India!".
But we made it. Our driver, though was very sleepy, and though it was daylight on arrival, he was falling asleep at the wheel when we finall got to the houseboat launch. We had a great weekend, and all agreed that it would be aq good idea to head out Sunday AM, so out driver had as much day driving as possible. This was way too long a drive for a single driver, so we needed to help out as much as possible.
Then we got offererred free massages next to Manish's house on Sunday....and we all went for those instead. In retrospect, my classmates and I all agree that we all still had misgivings about leaving later on Sunday, and that if one single person had made a point of objecting, they probably would have too. Instead, we all, like a herd, went together on this. Therefore, this was obviously a completely avoidable incident. We brought this on ourselves. We had the power and insight to avoid this situation and did not....please learn for our stupidity, and don't hesitate to put your foot down when you have to. Luckily, this could have gone a lot worse.
So, we head out around 4PM. We stop off for dinner around 7:30, traffic is not too bad, the driver seems to be well rested. We watch some movies on the van's DVD player. Unfortunately, it is situated in such a way that the driver can actually look up and see it, so I catch him occasioanally with his eyes off the road. It all goes OK though, and we relax. We cross into Tamil Nadu, the winding mountain roads are done, and I relax. The seats are so crapmed tobether, though, that there is no legroom, so I stick my legs out into the aisle. On the left side of the van, Cristina is in the second seat, I'm behind her, Jamie is behind me. On the right side, behind the driver, are Dinesh and Claire, behind them Anne, behind her Vida, and in the back row, Swami (aka Michael) and Kevin, our friends from Oklahoma. The movies are off, we all drift off to sleep.
The next thing I know, I here Dinesh yelling my name. there is a lot of noise, people are yelling, I hear my name a lot, and think "this cannot be a good thing". I hear Dinesh say "His pupils are blown", and people seem generally pretty worried. I am very groggy. The closest thing to this would be when I have over-indulged on adult beverages (I know, its a shock) and someone is waking me up. I open my eyes, and its all pretty hazy. I'm on the floor. Everyone is very excited, and I get the feeling we've crashed. However, I don't know why we're here in the first place. They help me up, and they all seem happy I'm somewhat alert, but I am curious "What happenned?" and "What are we all doing in this van?" seem like reasonable questions. I think we way have been together for dinner. or something. Dinesh reminds me that we were on our way back from Kerala and we crashed. This is all news to me. Kerala.....maybe.....not sure. So, we sit up, but they want to keep my C-spine stable, so Anne gets that duty. Apparently I have a nice laceration on my chin, and I'm bleeding all over her hands while she sits there and holds my head up. I tell her I don't have any funky diseases. Not sure if that helped, but its about all I can do for now. After about 5 minutes, I'm somewhat oriented. Big whopper of a headache, my jaw hurts, my ribs hurt, my thigh is killing me. I look around. Apparently everyone is alive, but apparently Swami's lage hurt, so some classmates are working on him. I have to say, if you are going to crash, having a bunch of people around you who are a few weeks shy of their MDs is a good thing.
I remember thinking how bad I wanted to get out of the van. Thoughts of fire pop into my head. But nobody will let me run around without neck support, so I sit with them. Looking around , I see the sun has just come up, and there are people milling around the back of the van. I hear that an ambulance is on its way. Cristina is sitting next to me. She apparently got banged up pretty good too. I try to crack some jokes but really still am useless and reliant on everyone else. This is not a good way to be. The ambulance arrives in what seems to be not too long. However, they have no C-collars. Really? Really. No C-collars on an ambulance. So we use what we have been using - rolled up towels wrapped around our necks. They start to get us out of the van and into the ambulance, and people start taking pictures of us. Anne has had enough of this and lets them have it. I accept it as payback for all the medical pics I have taken in my life. So we get into the ambulance (all 9 of us). Swami, Cristina, and I seem to be the worst hurt. Nobody has any obvious fractures, My leg hurts like hell but no deformities. Maybe my ribs are broken, but too early to tell. They want to take us to another CMC facility but we insist on Vellore, it is only 120Km away. We were so close to home when it happenned. As we pull away I see our driver standing in the road with a big gash under his eye. I guess he will have to take the second ambulance.
(Here is our van and the truck we hit. I was sitting in between the intact and the crumpled window on this side. Cristina was in front of me. She says she openned her eyes and just saw truck in her lap. There is a seat even farther forward that we had occasionally sat in, next to the driver. If anyone had been there for the crash, they would have died. Lucky.)
As we head to CMC in Vellore, I try to get a handle on what happenned. The driver fell asleep. We his a truck. Apparently I shot out into the aisle (no seatbelts in these things) and they found me under a seat (not sure if it was one that had come loose or not). I was completely unconscious. Snorring, even. Ha ha. But really tough to wake up. They were all very worried and happy when I openned my eyes. Out cold for 3-5 minute total. Cristina got clobbered with something in the side and chest. Dinesh got hit in the face with the DVD player. Everybody else had several abrasions, cuts, painful spots, you name it. We all got beaten up pretty bad. Luckily for you, loyal blog readers, lots of pics were taken!
Here I am holding my make-shift C-collar together in the ambulance. Cristina comforts herself with candy. Even now I know when there is a camera on me. Don't be fooled, I'm in a lot of pain, but even that won't stop me from performing. Thumbs up!
It sure is nice to have connections and a cell phone. Dinesh calls ahead to CMC to let them know we are coming in Swami's mom went to CMC, so the Chief of Medicine is alerted we are on our way as well. Still, when we get there, lights and sirens, nobody is waiting. We get dropped off in the courtyard with everyone staring at us. My leg hurts so bad, I start geting pre-syncopal (light-headed), and have to sit down on the ground. After a minute or two they get me a wheelchair and roll me in. Somebody puts a C-collar on me (finally!). I'm taken back into "Casualty", their version of the ER. Well, they take a quick look at me, no obvious broken bones but possible rib fractures, I'm alert and oriented, not about to die, so they slow thing down a little. I understand how it works. Still, they check my abdomen (no pain), I can move all 4 limbs, etc,etc. However, at no point whatasoever in this entire experience, does anyone do a proper mental status exam on me or a real neuro exam. It still blows my mind, but I guess they have thier protocols, so OK.
Here I am getting my face lac cleaned. I look at this and think, I must be acting. But then remember it really hurt a lot. Maybe I was acting a little.
At CMC, they will not do anything until you pay for it first. I am very lucky I had friends who while hurt, still ran around and got me registered, held my personal effects, and payed for my bloodwork and X-rays. Apparently from what I hear it was kind of a pain in the rear to fill out all the forms and pay and run from window to window fighting all the other families there. The chief of medicine popped in and took a look at all of us to make sure we were going to survive. Actually, that was pretty nice. He seemed to think things were going OK, so good times! Eventually, my x-rays were payed for and they wheeled me in. The view of the ceiling as they wheel you along on a gurney is wuite memorable. Now I know why its used all the time in movies and TV. So they get me in there and start shooting, with no sheilding at all for my personal bits or thryroid or any of me. Femur. Head. Neck. Chest. Shoulder. Wait....my shoulder is fine...They actually called Jamie into the room to have her pull on my arms for proper positioning.
She got sheilding. I was not in my preferred attire, the position they put us in was akward, lets just say that Jamie and I shared a moment neither one of us will soon forget. Sorry Jamie! You are a trooper!
Here I am on my wat back from X-ray.
Well, you know how ERs work. Slow. In the meantime, I hear updates on everyone else. Swami is OK, Cristina's still being looked at. Some nurses come by and want to stitch up my face. No way!! Dinesh told me that when he looked he thought he might be able to see my jawbone deep in my cut. Uh-uh, we're having suregeons sew this up. So they agree to get plastics to come and do it.
Here's my laceration. Not too good a pic, but anyways, its deep, through the subcutaneous fat.
This whole time, everyone one else is being very very helpful. I am greatly indebted to Anne, Dinesh, Claire, Vida, Jamia, and Kevin for all of their help that day. They got all of out stuff sorted out, payed our fees (ridiculously cheap by wester standards), and kept talking to us. I couldn't drink until my neck films were cleared, and I was so thirsty. Then Jamie bought a bottler of water and poured it into my mouth. It was messy but so refreshing!
Here's Dinesh with his DVD player shiner.
Plastic surgery comes along and they wheel me into the procedure room. That lidocaine does burn. Yeouch! They do a single layer closure (I asked about double-layer but they said no), and tell me to leave them for 5-7 days. They tell me to keep taking Cipro (?) for the wound. (I went and got some Bactrim DS on my own just in case the unthinkalbe occurs and it gets infected).
Here's my face. I haven't shaved inseveral days now, so I don't mess up the stiches of my other abrasions, but its driving me nuts in ths heat!
Eventually, it turns out that my films are clear, I am cleared for discharge, given an NSAID and thats it. With a whopper of a headache. Actually, they offered me morphine early on, but I delined. Swammi turns out to be fine. Swami and Kevin are done with their rotations, and were planning to head out this day anyways, so Swami's uncle in Chennai sends a car for them. It is late because it got into a wreck on the way here (in daytime no less). We wait around for Cristina to get dicharged, and then I go back to the hotel with Anne and Cristina to vegetate for a few hours in a/c. We have been thinking about ordering the room-service pizza. The only pizza I've ever seen available in India. So we order it. It is not available. Of course.
Well, I made it. I have some pretty significant vertigo when moving from a supine to vertical postition, and we are now 2 1/2 days since the concussion. If this keeps up I may go see a neurologist when I get back to San Anyonio. Maybe I knocked an otolith loose or something. Its really annoying, and makes me feel like I'n drunk when I'm walking. No headaches, though. My ribs are very very angry with me; I think they are seperated. The formerly amusing rickshaw rides are now pretty brutal, as every little bump goes right to my ribs. My leg is doing great, just looks horrible, and all the other cuts and bruises are healing slowly. Everyone else is pretty similar. Anne is getting some really nice greens and blues on her temple.
Here I am, pointing to the gigantor bump on my head that you cannot see. This is what made me go into never-never land for a few minutes.
