My Souvenir from South Africa

Earlier I alluded to the two sides of the South African healthcare system and said I would elaborate more later on. As promised, here it goes...

One early morning during the first week of May, my friend Renee and I set off on a 9 mile run in preparation for a half marathon we were planning on running on May 22nd. Apart from the fact that we were both in beautiful South Africa, there was nothing unusual about this particular day. We had been staying with a friend from CouchSurfing.org and had told our third travel mate John that we would be back in an hour and a half or less. Needless to say, that didn't happen.

We were about 32 minutes into our run. We were both feeling pretty good. But staring back at us dead ahead was a T-intersection and we had to make a decision on which way to go. Both of us being completely unfamiliar with the area entirely, I suggested we go left. Which we did. We had come down a long gradual hill to the intersection and were taking in the peaceful heart rate relief it provided before we crossed the road and cut left, continuing our run against traffic (they drive on the left in SA) as you are supposed to while running. Minute 34 of the run rolls around. We notice that the road is slowly transitioning from dense urban to country open and thus the traffic is increasing speed and, well, increasing. Minute 35 and we notice a lot of traffic in the left lane (far lane). We round a corner to the right and are inundated with sunlight. Cars passing in the left lane. Now cars are passing those cars in the right lane, and right next to us.

Renee and I are on the shoulder, though by this time we are running single file due to the three or four previous cars that pass us carelessly missing us by a few inches. The last one doesn't miss. Renee had been running slightly to the left in front of me and becomes the first and only victim of the collision. She gets clipped and knocked to the pavement.

For the first second, maybe two, it appears to me that Renee barely got grazed and had been knocked down, and maybe her injuries might not be as serious. Then I realize the car was probably going about 30 mph at least, and nothing involving hundreds, thousands of pounds of metal, plastic, and rubber colliding with the human body is not serious at that speed. Post-collision-second three settles in and I hear the first scream of agonizing pain. Renee is hurt. I go to her. One look at the shoe on her right foot tells it all. The fabric and rubber on the back heel is peeling off, a gaping hole on the right side, and the material just above the toes is shreaded. More agonizing. The car stops. Two men get out and walk to me. They stare. That's all they do. They just stare at this woman who is yelling and crying in pain.

"Call an ambulance now!" I yell at them in frustrated anger, not understanding why the hell they are not doing shit.

"We don't know the phone number for an ambulance." They respond back, barely audible to me in the chaos.

I lift Renee off the pavement and out of the way of more oncoming traffic and place her on the grass.

"You're taking us to the hospital then!" I tell them as I pick her up and slide her into the back seat.

A woman is in the driver's seat. I tell her to take us to the hospital. The two other men have been left behind but it's too late at this point and my concern is not with them. She takes us to the closest hospital there is. It happens to be a public hospital. After a lot of confusion and poor navigating by the driver and myself, we arrive at the ER entrance. We somehow manage to locate a wheelchair and wheel her in. Again, trying to navigate where to go, no one seems to be too concerned. We wheel her into a huge waiting room filled with people waiting to see...someone.

I try and get her a doctor right away. This is much harder than it sounds. People keep telling me I absolutely must fill out form XYZ before she can receive any care whatsoever. I'm so frustrated I just keep wheeling her deeper into the hospital until I see some form of healthcare professional in the form of doctors and nurses. I wheel her up to the station and go back to complete the stupid form.

Nobody understands what the hell I'm saying. They all looked confused and are wondering why I'm so amped up. I wait around for a long time, waiting for this awful form. It finally comes. Of course it doesn't help that we happened to be running during the incident and I have absolutely nothing on my person. No ID, no passport, no money, no phone, no address, no phone numbers to call, nothing. And I had no idea where we were either. I had a wristwatch though!

Finally some woman offers to help me with her address and contact info so we can fill out this damn form and get Renee some treatment. The driver of the car comes to me and apologizes. Her lawyer is here already. What the hell? You call your lawyer 10 minutes after we arrive at the hospital? She must have been freaking out! I was beginning to not like her even more. I ask her if she can take me to my friend's house, I think I can find it at this point.

We go there, I tell John what happened. We go back to the hospital. Renee is still waiting for... anything. By now this is two hour after the injury. An hour later, they take x-rays and recommend we transfer her to a private hospital. One problem though, the hospital won't let us leave until we pay them for the x-rays. I have nothing on me. John has a credit card from the US that he is hoping to pay with, but nobody is there to take the payment, we're waiting for some person for some unknown reason. John, Renee, and I decide that I will take Renee to the new hospital in our rental car and John will stay back and handle the payment. Renee and I burst out of the hospital in search for our new home for the next week.

We pull away, go up the road, and pull a U-turn. Ten seconds later as we are passing by the same hospital, I see John come running out the ER doors across the road and towards the car with an envelope. I slow to a stop. John gets in. "Go Joe! Go Joe! Go Joe! I didn't pay them!" He shouts. This of course causes me to laugh hysterically and makes me feel a little bit better that we inflicted some small form of revenge on this horrid hospital with such shitty service. In the end, we knew Peace Corps would pay the hospital for all the costs so we weren't too concerned. And it changed the tone from somber seriousness to situational hilarity.

We arrived at the private hospital, aka heaven. My God. It was night and day. We walked into the ER and they already had Renee's forms that Peace Corps had faxed over on the front desk. They wheel her in and within minutes a doctor and two nurses begin treating her. John and I sit there with her in the ER, entertaining ourselves with push up competitions and a ginormous sack full of fresh South African produce and peanut butter. Renee has surgery that night.

There are numerous thoughts and lessons that I took away from this experience. I'd like to highlight a few.

1) I feel bad for the millions of South Africans that cannot afford private insurance and have to wait in those long lines and put up with that crappy service.

2) I hate bureaucracy.

3) South African healthcare is pretty darn good, if you go to the right hospital.

4) You can still have a great time on holiday if something really bad happens, traveling is about the experiences! I don't know if Renee can say the same. But we truly enjoyed being there to support her and entertain her at the hospital. And when we weren't there, we explored South Africa!

5) Peace Corps has their act together when it comes to taking care of their own.

6) And most importantly! WE ARE NOT INVINCIBLE!

What's that you say? Not invincible? Yes! It's true. Indestructible, we are not. Most of the 29 great human beings that were in my Peace Corps group fall somewhere in the early to mid-twenties range. At this age, this is how a lot of us tend to feel. We feel invulnerable, unconquerable, immortal. Combine this with living in Uganda as a Peace Corps volunteer and you've got yourself one deadly cocktail.

The truth is, no matter how little we may think about it, we are fragile. We are capable of sustaining life changing events in the blink of an eye. The risks are there. The statistics hammer them home, and they don't lie. As Peace Corps volunteers, and I'm generalizing here, we tend to have a more "adventurous" spirit. And there's nothing wrong with that. I could be in the safest neighborhood in the cozy US of A and walk out my front door in the morning and get slaughtered by a drunk driver. The risks are everywhere. The calling I'm making to everyone is to be cognizant of them. Think every situation through and make the best decision you can at that time. Have a system in place and stick to it, because that is the best safeguard you can have for your own self.

Did Renee and mine's decision entail some risk? Of course. Was it wrong for us to make that decision? Certainly not in my opinion. In the end that's all that we can really say about that event, it is a real bummer, a terrible accident, and completely unfair. The prognosis on Renee? Fuzzy at best. Some doctors say she won't run again, others have different opinions. Knowing Renee, she will be running a 5K in a few months, she has that level of mental fortitude, I have very little doubt about that.

So Renee, I look forward to traversing Uganda's crappy dirt roads with you when you get back. As long as we do a full assessment of every single pothole, crevasse, massive rock, intersection, and vehicle within a 10 mile radius first.

Stay safe and be well.