Injury at Sea

Another winter storm was attacking the island. Gordon, the radio operator, picked up a call from the Tristania. While passing close to Gough in a heavy sea, a crew member had fallen into the hold and broken his arm. The ship was due to return to Cape Town in three weeks time but the man was in pain and needed medical attention. The Captain was asking if it would be possible for the team medic to lend assistance?

When John, the expedition leader, asked me if I would be up to the task, I began to perspire and felt the urge to defecate. In these stormy conditions the Tristania would not be able to anchor but would pass as close to the base as was safe and lower a dinghy to come and fetch me. The heaving swells made it too dangerous to use the crane to lower me in a net, so I would have to take the path over the arch and climb down to a narrow rocky platform at sea level. The trickiest part would be when I had to ‘hop’ aboard the dinghy.

Realising that if I did not want to be branded a coward, I had no choice but to agree to give it a shot.

After knocking back a double tot of rum I packed a haversack and we set out into the wind and rain. The arch formed a natural bridge to the outlying stack where a hand winch was bolted to a concrete base. The ship was holding steady about a mile offshore and the dinghy was making its way towards us, a lone figure at the tiller.

John, Ray and Thys, who had accompanied me, lowered the 40-foot aluminium ladder and I began the vertical descent, all the while telling myself, ‘You fall off this ladder and you’re dead.’ Down on the ledge, I was alarmed at seeing just how turbulent the water was, and how its surface heaved up and dropped back in slow convulsions. I would have to board the boat as it came alongside on an upswell.

The dinghy headed for the arch and then swung round and came towards me on a course that was almost parallel to my platform. It was clear that the helmsman would have to keep his boat moving in order not to be washed against the rocks. At the same time, he had to reach me just as the swell rose up. It took two dummy runs for him to practise the manoeuvre, and then on the third pass he moved in on an upswell and shaved past. He shouted, I jumped into the boat and as I fell to my knees, he gunned the outboard and we headed for the waiting ship.

The clamour of the motor and the force of the wind would have made any attempt at conversation both futile and embarrassing. All I could do was to give a thumbs-up and the seaman replied with a nod. As we drew nearer to the fishing vessel, I remembered that, as an afterthought, I had stuffed the Minolta into my pack along with the first aid items. If I survived this adventure I might as well have a record of it.

The ship had turned broadside to the gale, thereby offering some protection in its lee. We drew in close to the rusty steel hull and, as the vessel rolled into the vertical, I grabbed the rope ladder, stepped into space, and desperately felt for a foothold. I found a rung and began to climb. A man was standing at the rail looking down at me. He turned out to be the Captain and, after welcoming me aboard, led the way below deck.

In the crew’s quarters the patient was lying on his bunk. He was a small man of about 40 with unshaven all-weather features. Nursing his right arm, he sat up with a groan. His forearm was bruised and swollen, and the break was about half way along the radius.

“This doesn’t appear to be a compound fracture,” I said, pretending I knew what I was talking about. “That’s good, because it means that I won’t have to operate and put in a steel plate and screws, or any of that shit. But first I am going to give you an injection for the pain, and then I will stabilise your arm and put it in a sling.” To lighten things up a bit I added, “You will have to wipe your arse with your left hand for a few weeks, like a Moslem.”

I injected the Omnopon and while I was busy bandaging and strapping splints in place he began to relax.

“How are you feeling now?”

“No, I’m feeling better. The pain is going. I’m feeling lekker, man.”

“You should be. That’s the whole point of morphine.”

When I was about to leave, after giving him a week’s supply of pain killers, he reached into his locker, took out a magazine and presented it to me by way of thanks for my services.

Seated in the dinghy once more, I took a photograph of the Captain, and then one of my driver as we returned to the island. Only later did I fully comprehend just how skilled and courageous this man must have been to get me out to the ship and then safely back to the island.

Several months later, on landing in Cape Town, I was standing on the quayside waiting for my luggage to be offloaded from the Agulhas, when I caught sight of a man approaching who I recognised as the seaman with the broken arm. In alarm I looked about for a weapon with which to defend myself, imagining he was about to stab me for having set the break skew, thus causing him a whole heap of suffering by having to undergo corrective surgery. But there was a friendly smile on his face and he offered me his hand.

He was on leave right now and, when he heard that the Agulhas would be docking this morning, he decided to come and thank me for how I had helped him. He clenched his fist and flexed his muscles to show how strong and healthy his right arm had grown. I had done a really good job.

“Ah, it was nothing,” I said, trying to sound like an experienced orthopaedic surgeon. “And I would like to thank you for that magazine you gave me. It did the whole team a power of good. You know how difficult it is to come by good stuff like that in this fucked-up country?”

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