[GeoStL] Re: China musings

  • From: "Eric East" <christianherper@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <geocaching@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Sat, 24 Jun 2006 12:47:50 -0500

-
What a story. And what a concept...
 being responsible for your actions.

Eric



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Yvonne Von Der Ahe" <yvda@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <geocaching@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, June 23, 2006 2:37 PM
Subject: [GeoStL] China musings


> -
> At lunch today several suggested that I write up what recently happened to 
> me in China.  So here's the story...arrived Beijing from LA on May 18th at 
> 5:30 am after a 15 hour flight, went to breakfast, then on a tour of the 
> Hutong (the old area of Beijing) via rickshaw.  At the end of the tour my 
> friend, Mary, and I alit from the rickshaw and were standing by the driver 
> when this car came out of nowhere and struck me (I was not standing in the 
> traffic lane).  I was knocked to the ground and the left front tire of the 
> car ran over my right foot causing my shoe to come off (tread marks on the 
> shoe to prove it).  I could not stand or bear weight on the foot and my 
> right arm was battered and bleeding.  The car's driver picked me up and 
> placed me in his backseat and took me to the Beijing Friendship Hospital 
> which treats foreigners.  We were accompanied by the driver's co-worker 
> and the local tour guide who acted as the translator.  It took over an 
> hour to get there as he didn't
> know where it was AND he had another accident on the way there...a fender 
> bender, but that's another story).  This man was NOT a good driver, but 
> after 2 weeks in China I'm convinced that there are few.
>
>  On arrival at the hospital, all three went in and obtained a gurney which 
> I got on then they rolled me into the emergency room.  It was a LARGE room 
> with lots of Chinese people on gurneys surrounded by family members.no 
> nurses in sight.  Off to the side of the room were several curtained 
> cubicles where patients were slowly being seen.  In China all care has to 
> be prepaid, so the man who had caused my injuries registered me and paid 
> the fee.  I was then taken to a small room where the doctor (who spoke no 
> English) cleaned my bleeding arm and applied some bright blue-green liquid 
> and a dressing, and ordered x-rays of my foot.  By this time a friend of 
> the driver had come to the hospital and joined our group.  The group 
> (driver, co-worker, friend, and tour guide) then took me to the radiology 
> department for x-rays (again the service had to be prepaid). The group 
> even accompanied me into the x-ray room for the pics and discussed with 
> the technician the positioning of my foot.
>  We then returned to the doctor with the x-rays and the group had this 
> animated conversation with the doctor in Chinese and all ignored me.  The 
> doctor with the assistance of the group put a splint on my foot/lower leg 
> and told me to come back in the morning to see the specialist.  He also 
> prescribed a muscle relaxant for the discomfort and a herbal medicine for 
> the swelling (again had to be prepaid).
>
>  The next morning the driver came to the hotel accompanied by his sister 
> and the friend from the previous day, the local tour guide joined us and 
> we went back to the hospital where we had to wait in line to be seen (was 
> only about 45 minutes and again had to be prepaid).  The doctor looked at 
> the x-ray, discussed it with my accompanying group, then went next door 
> and discussed it with the other doctor, then discussed it with the casting 
> technician.all in Chinese and not a word to me.  Finally I got some 
> information out of the tour guide.multiple fractures (which I knew since I 
> had looked at the x-ray), no walking cast, no weight bearing for a month. 
> After the cast was applied I was taken back to the hotel, a wheelchair 
> with a pusher was arranged for the rest of the tour and a pair of crutches 
> obtained for areas where the wheelchair would not fit (hotel/restaurant 
> bathrooms, etc).  I then joined the rest of our tour group.
>
>  For the next 12 days we toured Beijing, Xian, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Wuxi, 
> Suzhou and Shanghai.  China has more than eighty caches and I had planned 
> on geocaching while there.  Obviously the accident resulted in my not 
> being able to do many.in fact only three.  A beautiful country with MANY 
> people (all friendly and helpful), good food (as long as you don't ask 
> what it is), bad water and air pollution, wonderful gardens/parks, and so 
> many pagodas and temples and historic sites!  I took lots and lots of 
> pictures...from my wheelchair.
>
>  On my return I went to the orthopedist, have a Lis Franc's crush injury 
> with fractures of the 2nd-5th metatarsals...if I had been in the US with 
> this type of injury they would have taken me to surgery to stabilize the 
> joint.  But, alas, I was in China.  Now no weight bearing on the affected 
> foot.so am hobbling around on my crutches till mid-July when I have 
> another appointment with the orthopod.
>
>  Additional information.In China when someone harms you they are 
> responsible for you and so it was that the driver paid for all the medical 
> care I received while in Beijing.  But, the costs for medical care are 
> much lower there than here.  After he returned me to the hotel he went to 
> the police with his friend to file the report (or that is what I was 
> told).  Later in the trip we saw another accident where the woman hit by 
> the vehicle appeared to be dead.  Our tour guide explained that if the 
> woman was alive, the driver was responsible for all her hospital costs; if 
> she was dead then he was responsible for her funeral expenses, and if she 
> had young children he was responsible for them.
>
>  Ladybug STL
>
>
>
>
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 For List Info or To make _ANY_ changes, including unsubscribing from this
 list, click -----> //www.freelists.org/list/geocaching 
 Missouri Caches Scheduled to be Archived  http://tinyurl.com/87cqw

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