Saturday, July 5, 2008

These pictures represent the last you will ever see of "Yours Truly" on a 4 X4 ATV! I have decided that cross-country ATV'ing is not in my DNA and I have lost alot of my prior expertise on rough terrain manuveuring since my U.S.Marine Corps time on Mount Fugi! Afterall, somethings are bound to leave you after 52 years!

To make an extremely long story [and night] short, I will summarize the details. Let me give you the bottom line, I am alive[?] a survivor. I "flipped over" in an uncanny manner and suffered 4 broken ribs on left backside, a broken bone between shoulder socket and where it connects to neck bone structure. A few stiches in the scalp and a considerable bruising from left shoulder to below hip area!

This happened outside of Annapoima where Fernando has city/country property that you have seen before. I can't recall how many employees of the Annapoima City Rescue Squad it took to load me into the "rescue" vehicle [Mayor's personal pick-up truck], but I was told, that some of them had not prior oppportunity to deal "hands-on" with a Gringo of my proportions!

The emergency facilities in Annapoima were not ready to cope with my challenges. On a positive side, It was good this happened and this situation identified, as Nada and I have been visiting Annapoima for the last 15 years!

I was then moved to a town called La Mesa. It is about 15 K's closer to Bogota. It was the intent to take x-rays of the damage and then decide the next course of action. Unfortunately, the x-ray machine had seen it's better days and produced images that could not be analyzed.

Ok, it's still not too late to go to Bogota! About 65 K's on very mountaineous highway. First thing....call Bogota for an Ambulance! They responded and arrived in LaMesa 11:30 PM. Back to Bogota and the Emergency Room at hospital at 02:00AM. Things went well from this point forward.

My prior visit the week before, for some blood pressure issues, put me in a good relationship with some of the same staff. Not the Americiano Gringo again? Although different Doctors, I had already set a precedent for my health care expectations from the earlier visit. You may have seen my heart Cardio Doctors brother on TV recently, if you have been watching the sucessful freeing of the hostages by the Colombian government from the insurgent FARC. Colombian Defense Minister Santos is the brother of my Cardio Doctor. In addition, I have Fernando's business partner Jorge to thank for introducing me to his B-in-Law Dr Santos.

This hostage recovery story has kept all in this country pre-occupied and justifies the fact that they have and continue to support their democratic form of government and fight the elements that support the drug trade, despite what our Congressional leaders have to say about these issues. I don't support George Bush on too many things these days, but he is absolutely right on the mark, relative to the FTA outstanding and yet to be acted upon, and the fact that Colombia is argueably the only "friend" that the USA can count on in the Southern Hemisphere!~
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