The Rescue
I can hardly put into words the relief that I felt that somebody had seen us and stopped. That single act of stopping made a significant difference to the outcome.
Once one car had stopped the chances of others seeing them, and us, increased considerably.
We found out later that the couple in the first car were fellow travellers, Werner and Eva from Antwerp. We are still in contact with them.
Photo taken through their car windows as they pull up to help us. I am still trapped inside the car. David has moved under the tailgate, out of the sun. Mouse over to zoom in.
Werner immediately came over to the car and tried to open the doors. Eva tried to contact the emergency services. Mobile signals are not strong in the countryside of Namibia. Another vehicle pulled up behind Werner's. I can't remember if it was a Land Rover, but it did have a high lift jack attached to the front. I thought that the jack could be used to force open the doors or any other opening so that I could get out and help David. I don't know if David was conscious or not at this stage. Before I could express my thoughts on the jack, Werner had managed to pry open the passenger door. I was able to clamber out and see David for the first time since he crawled under the tailgate. Then two french medical Doctor's arrived from the opposite direction. One of them specialized in A&E (ER) and immediately started working on David. All in what seemed just a few minutes. We were so lucky. Forever grateful to these two couples, both on the tourist trail in Namibia, who had their days dramatically changed.
Our luggage was strewn across the desert, some open. Tipped out of the back of the pickup as the hardtop came off. There were two first aid kits we had bought specially for this trip, in our luggage. Lifesystems Mountain Leader Pro First Aid kit and the smaller Sterile Kit. We had no intention of needing or using them, but bought them just in case. As it was they proved to be excellent, and had everything that the Doctors needed. Eva had contacted the emergency services and both looked after me, and started pulling our stuff together. There were wallets and paperwork all in the open. Eva sorted that and put it away safely. Eva also sent me to sit in the passenger seat of her car, to be more comfortable and to be in the shade. I also recall a hat from somewhere. I didn't stay there long and wondered around in a befuddled state, quickly rounded up by Werner or Eva and sat in the shade again, either in their car or ours. I kept saying that I was fine, and there was nothing wrong. At one point, I seem to recall walking back to the bend. I thought I could make out the tyre tracks going diagonally across the road. Not that I knew how confused and concussed I was at the time. I thought I was keeping out of the way of the Doctors and Werner working on David. I still wanted to be close though. Eva did a brilliant job searching the desert and finding all our stuff thrown out of the car during the crash. Finding the Go-Pro and the sat-nav attached to the now non-existent windscreen. Just some of the small things, among all the other. The suction bracket of the sat-nav was broken, but both the Go-Pro and the sat-nav is still working and in use today.
The cameras were less fortunate. Camera bags were open on the back seat for easy access. They were launched into the air and cameras and lenses broke on impact, almost all of them. At least the memory chips survived.
Fritz Schenk arrived from Palmwag Lodge. He is a friend of the organiser of our trip Kathryn Haylett of UK based Your Safari Ltd. To this day I don't know if he was passing, was out looking for us as we had not arrived, or had picked up on radio traffic. He was also involved with Camelthorn Safaris and Omarunga Lodge in addition to Palmwag Lodge. He was a manager with all the local contacts and used this to advantage. He used his radio to get back to the Lodge to improve communications. There appeared to be some confusion about the ambulance with perhaps one coming from the North and one from the South, or perhaps both cancelled. He called for a team to come with another vehicle and they collected all the luggage and prepared to take it on to the Lodge for safe keeping.
Eva had also noticed something glittering in the sun. It was David's broken watch, now showing a temperature of 67 C. Nearby she found the single rock that almost took out David's eye as he landed. It was covered in his blood, sundried now. We took it with us.
At some point the police arrived. Possibly two different sorts of police. Fritz evidently knew Warrant Officer Samuel, the leader of the police. The luggage was all loaded up before WO Samuel insisted on taking it into police safe custody, he appeared very conscientious. It was transferred to the police pickup. WO Samuel was very aware of the tourist industry and the need to maintain the reputation and ensure nothing was lost or stolen. The other police asked about the accident, if there was a bend sign, the speed we were doing. They even noticed the out of date tax disk on what was left of the broken windscreen. I explained the situation and said that we had requested a replacement from the hire company. They accepted that there was a fourteen day grace period. They decided that they would not charge us.
A few locals had arrived and stood a reasonable distance away and watched the goings on. Unlike some countries, there was no attempt to approach, make gains, or steal anything. Credit to them.
The two Doctor's continued to work on David, and the police also became involved in checking on the progress of the ambulance. It was terrifying to hear the Doctor say "Stay with us David" from time to time. I hope that the phrase was being used to remain conscious. The other Doctor cleaned one of my wounds and applied steristrips. I was still not in pain, and thought I knew what was going on. Later I found out that the Doctor's were Cecile & Christian from France. Again, forever grateful.
David was more stable and asked to speak to me. I was so glad to be able to comfort him. Fortunately this whole period is a blank to him.
It was getting late and a joint decision was made to lay David in the back of the police pickup and take him back to Bergsig police station, to wait for the ambulance there. I think it was Fritz who suggested that Werner and Eva should not travel any further that day, and return with him to Palmwag Lodge. I understand that he looked after them with a place to stay and dinner. It is a shock to be in an accident but it is also shocking to be involved in the aftermath. Not a good condition to be driving any distance in. Werner and Eva would also not arrive at their next planned destination before dark, and driving at night was on of the Safari don't do list. WO Samuel arranged for a policeman to stay with the car through the night until the car was collected by the hire company.
Both David and I were brilliantly looked after by the six people who were not in our lives before that day.
A sort of Spinal board for emergency and rescue, stretcher came from somewhere and was used to move David, followed by a very bumpy ride to Bergsig.
It was fully dark when the Ambulance arrived at the police station in Bergsig, at least six hours after the accident.
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As an aside, this is a difficult article to write bringing back so many memories. The good thing though is that there are as many good memories as bad, if not more, which makes it achievable. I think writing it now was triggered in part, by David being back in Southern Africa, some of our friends doing a self drive safari tour of Namibia, and the upcoming two year anniversary of our trip. If fact our friends got back home yesterday, safe and sound, having had a wonderful time.
From Eva's perspective, in her own words
September 2018
Whenever I scroll to my pictures of that holiday, I am always a bit overwhelmed by the pictures of the accident, I get thrown back to how I reacted at that moment: at first I was in disbelieve -this is not really happening-, a bit later in total chaotic stress -I tried to act but was barely able to think straight, forgot how my phone worked, where the sheet with all the emergency numbers was etc- and after that I think I just focused on you. Werner was mainly busy with David and I tried to make the whole situation a bit less horrible by asking you questions, throwing in a joke, just to distract you and maybe to reassure myself everything would be ok.
The first image we saw of you was your arm waving out of the broken vehicle, in my memory you waved very much in slow motion, not at all the kinda wave when you greet someone or want to flag someone down. To me it was a tired, exhausted kinda wave. A please help us-wave.
I think I stopped every car that passed by, to get as much help as possible.
Fritz helped indeed in any way he could, over the years he must have experienced similar situations before but nevertheless he stayed on the scene to make sure you and David got at least minimal help from police etc. and he reassured your luggage was safe so you needed not worry about it.
He also acknowledged the fact Werner and I were in no state of mind to drive further to look for a campsite, he arranged a spot on his campsite and offered us a free meal in the restaurant of his lodge. We even drank a gin & tonic with him as aperitif, to let some steam off. He definitely cares for people. It's these things that can turn a bad situation a bit around, make it a bit less bad.
