Hey all! I'm posting the message below for Trina.
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Salaam! Greetings from Indonesia!
For those of you that don't know, Mon and I got into a motorcycle accident last April 13. Only got to really email people about it now. Instead of answering repetitive questions and/or correcting miscommunicated story details, I'll give you all the low-down in one email. The story is of course, from my perspective. I dedicate this email nobela to my (chismoso) family and cisv friends. Hahahahah...! (Warning: may get gory...)
Mon, Marco (Tolentino), Rich (Blaylock), Shawn (USA leader of mine from my CISV Village) and I were in Lovina Beach, Bali. We had about 2 more weeks to go for our Indonesia backpacking trip. We decided to rent motorbikes, as is the custom for tourists here licensed or unlicensed, and go to some hot spring and Buddhist monastery somewhere off Lovina. (Lovina is northmost of Bali, by the way, and not as crowded as Kuta or other touristy places so places around it are really provincial.) So we grab 3 bikes, one for Marco, another for Shawn, and Mon and I shared a third. Rich stayed at the hotel. We then headed off up a steep mountain road, Marco had a bit of a stumble and scratched his elbow, we got lost, then found a sari-sari store that sold petrol, and gassed up. Shawn explained, while gassing up, that in the first 3months riding a bike, you'd fall at least once and Mon coincidentally said "Yikes, and I haven't had mine yet". We asked for directions and the locals told us to head back down. (Ngek.) Since it was a gorgeous drive, we were relatively slow, taking our time. I remember seeing a huge pothole on the left and, having gone through a couple, just braced myself for the butt-impact. I remember Mon slowing down even more, then suddenly we lost balance and fell on our right, skidding farther down the unpaved road.
I was wearing Mon's big backpack, so that must've cushioned my fall and put me at an inclined angle so that I saw Mon's pained face when he was skidding. I remember thinking: "Ok, ok, we gotta get out of the middle of the road once we stop skidding" and remember feeling some pain on my right leg. As soon as I stopped skidding, I waited for Mon to halt, got ready to get up and get us both out of the road. Then I saw Mon's right leg and foot: super bloody, 2nd toe nail gone, skin on the bottom and top of his big toe was totally gashed... Sitting down, I started to get up, but then saw my right leg as well. Long gash on my shin, gash on my knee and foot, and a semi-deep hole on top of my ankle that was gushing out some mini-fountain of blood. (Blech.) So I kinda froze. I heard Mon asking if I was okay, said yes, asked him the same thing, if he was in pain...etc. The adrenalin was still there, so we couldn't really feel much.
Marco was behind, saw us, and said "Oh no. Oh no...Are you okay?" a couple of times. Shawn apparently bypassed us on the right before we hit the pothole, saw us tilt and fall in his side mirror and heard everything. He turned around and helped us out. (Good thing he's a med student, getting his masters in chiropractic studies). We decided to move to the shaded side, but when Mon tried standing, he couldn't and said "I think it's broken". Shawn carried him, bride-style, to the side, while I hopped, and we decided that we had to get to a hospital pronto. But we couldn't drive 3 bikes. So Shawn and Marco drove 2 bikes up to the sari-sari store, left one there, rode on one going back. I washed Mon's wounds with mineral water. An Indonesian couple spotted us, could hardly understand and speak english, offered help, and called a friend who had a truck. Mon was lifted into the back of the exposed truck, I went into the passenger seat. Shawn and Marco trailed behind on bikes. The driver didn't understand "hospital" so I said "doctor" and we were brought to the nearest clinic. The doc made us wait a while, finally saw Mon, and told driver to bring us to a hospital. The drive was probably about 20 minutes.
I texted Richard, asked him to get Mon's insurance policy, told him what happened, told him where we were. Marco picked up Rich and they both headed to the hospital. We got wheeled into the emergency room, Mon got x-rayed, I got stitched up, and doctor finally declared that Mon had 3 fractures in his metacarpals and need surgery within 6hours. We called insurance, called a doctor in Manila to get 2nd opinion (scared that we were getting lost in translation with all the Indonesian doctors), and gave the operation a go. They inserted 3 wires in his foot to aid the bone regrowth. Mon got admitted for 4 days, I stayed with him, with the other guys moving to a hotel nearer to the hospital. We'd watch movies all day, eat Indonesian hospital food (mostly fried! sheesh!), wince at all the bandage changing and wound cleaning, and decided to cut our trip short.
Now, Mon's back in Manila. Our travel insurance (Ace Insurance with International SOS -- panalo!!) sent over a doctor to pick up Mon, and flew him back on Business Class and took him all the way home to his house. Marco and Shawn decided to continue the trip and went back to Java. Rich and I wanted to go home (couldn't enjoy walking around with a bum foot) and tried rebooking but no seats were available and to book (on the 24th, 2days before our original departure on 26th) would cost P5,400. Too much for a couple days' difference. So we stayed in Jakarta and are now waiting it out. We're currently housed by Buh Tetet's, an Indonesian CISVer, to whom we're most grateful.
Whew. So we're alive and thankful that nothing grave happened. A good adventure, good story to tell. It's a pity that our hospital stay ate up our time and bum feet didn't allow us to trek any further, but that just means we have to go back.
See you all on Philippine soil soon :)
Much love,
Trina
