Every car horn in Dijon is blaring, as France are through to the final.
Normal bloggging service will be resumed soon.
Sports News (Update: AKA “The Crash Thread”)
Comments
55 responses to “Sports News (Update: AKA “The Crash Thread”)”
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Sad news
Dear all,
This entry in dropsafe is probably going to be the last for a while as news has just come in that Alec had an accident on his motorbike yesterday while still in France.
To quote from the e-mail a mutual friend sent out…
“The fireman said that he will probably live, but we know no more than that currently.”
I’m sure you all will be crossing your fingers and hoping that the news sounds worse than it really is.
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Latest News
<pre>I got hold of the hospital in St Omer . They said he was quite serious but the expect him to survive. He has many problems, spleen (not too bad), kidney (more serious), chest including blood in his chest, many broken ribs and a broken leg. They were about to put him on to a helicopter to Lille where the major trauma unit is.
He was too big for the helicopter so they’d had to take him by road.
He is now in Lille and they have put a drain in his chest.</pre>
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re: Sad news – details so far
Dear all,
Alec was taken first to St Omer hospital.
They said he was quite serious but the expect him to survive.
He has many problems, spleen (not too bad), kidney (more serious), chest including blood in his chest, many broken ribs and a broken leg. They tried to put him on to a helicopter to Lille where the major trauma unit is – but he was too big (bless him) for the ‘copter so they transferred him by road.
At Lille they put a drain in his chest.
His sister and bother-in-law should be with him now (Friday 7th am) having gone over by Eurostar at dawn.
If anyone wants direct updates by e-mail please could you contact me at ramtops@ntlworld.com as I am not a member of the LJ/blog community. I will continue updates on Junk-not.
The cats are being cared for by a neighbour and ourselves for the forseeable future.
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Alec in hospital
Bad news, get well soon old friend..
Thanks for the updates you two..
Chris
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Hope you’re fixed up real soon, Alec.
– amd
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re: Sports News
I quote:
Mandy describes him as ‘compos mentis’ and able to turn her fingers blue with his grip. He’s got a broken leg, and broken ribs, and they (doctors) are concerned about chest injuries, and liver and spleen damage. He’s in intensive care, but she also mentioned that they are talking about sending him to England in a few days.
I also know that Bart will visit him this afternoon.
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re: Sad news
Hope you haven’t done any permanent damage and will be back on your feet soon.
Cheers mate.
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re: Sports News
If you have a get-well message for Alec feel free to mail it to bart.blanquart at sun.com in the next hour and a half (i.e. they should reach me before 15.30 CET / 9.30AM Eastern).
I’ll print them and give them to Alec this evening.
Bart
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re: Alec in hospital
Hi all
Just had Alec’s sister Mandy on the phone from France with the latest (1.30pm Fri):
The Dr’s are still really worried about his internal injuries, and want to stabilise these before working on his broken leg. He’s not being allowed water, and is getting very grumpy!
When…. Hopefully next week…. He is returned to the UK, the family hope is he will be put in Droitwich hospital near them. So those that want to visit him may have a bit of a trek to make. However this is not confirmed, and I’ve not heard Alec’s views on the subject.
I passed on the good wishes of the blogging/Sun/junk communities in general when I spoke to Mandy.
I will continue to keep folk informed – can’t believe how much info is coming through.
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re: Sports News
Ignore the time limit — another colleague and one of Alec’s friends is heading there saturday morning, and others may head to Lille as well, so I’ll forward to the next “messenger” messages you want printed and delivered.
(I’ll keep doing this until monday morning, as I’m probably going to head to Lille on monday and will be away from computers the days after)
Bart
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Messages for Alec
Bart, you are a star, thank you so very much for this!
Chris
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re: Sports News
Dear All
Bart Blanquart The following are the relevant excerpts including Alec’s account of what happened.
Presumably we’ll hear more later today after Casper Dik has visited, or via Mandy (Alec’s sis) if I hear from her.
Keep the prayers up guys – hopefully the famous Muffett constitution will encourage some of the damaged internal organs to heal themselves, so that the medics can then turn his leg bionic 🙂
By the way, why are there all these rubbish posting listed on the left, and can we get rid of them?
Bart says:
On the left a wall-length table filled with his file and medication schedule, and above the table a large collection of X-rays and scans. On the right there’s a bed, there’s heart and oxygen level monitor cabling, a saline drip, another with glucose, a drain line, and an oxygen mask and its line, and in the middle of that web of tubes there’s Alec — but he looks pretty good (considering), though quite tired.
After saying hello he starts by itemising the different parts of his body that were injured — a bunch of broken ribs (hence the oxygen mask, it allows him to breathe less deeply), kidney and spleen injured, possibly a bit of his lung as well. A broken leg, the fracture just a few centimeters below the knee, which’ll need some metalwork some time in the future.
Apparantly he was overtaking a car or truck and made an miscalculation/mis-estimation of his line and hit the curb, the impact of which catapulted him from his bike and “apparantly I also damaged a road sign. The police want to talk to me to get a statement”.
Alec has not been getting food or drink and most likely won’t be getting any for the next few days (but we’ve given him a set of aerosol cans with water, so that he can at least stop his mouth from drying out), as they’re hoping that his organs will heal by themselves — thereby avoiding a (major) operation.
Now, he’s going to have surgery at least once, even if there’s no need to operate on kidney or spleen, to set his left leg (his left side took the biggest hit), but that’ll have to wait until after his organs have stabilised.
Alec was extremely tired (he was up until 3 at night and was awake again at 6 in the morning) and dozed off a couple times, but he did take his time to scan through the card with all the messages — I printed 35 messages and pasted those in, and (on the hospital parking lot, just before heading in) added a bunch by hand that Dave Walker relayed by phone.
(Thanks everyone for sending them in — I think it did him good to see this show of support/friendship/compassion or however you want to call it. The messages that reached me too late will be taken to him tomorrow, by Casper, and I may head down there on monday if he’s not being repatriated by then so further messages will reach him)
He’s not in pain as long as he keeps still — so he keeps still most of the day, only disturbed by the changing of the sheets (for which he asked me to write some instructions in French, so he could point the nurses to them, so they’d support his leg properly when moving him).
By now he was getting pretty sleepy, so I said goodbye and headed out.
Bart Blanquart
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re: Sports News
“By the way, why are there all these rubbish posting listed on the left, and can we get rid of them?”
Looks like Crypticide got hit by a moderately successful blogspam attack. I imagine that only Alec will be able to fix it: while the site is based on blosxom, I think that Alec has hacked it beyond anything that Rael would recognize. He and I talked about the pros and cons of migrating to something like WordPress, but that’s as far as it went.
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re: Sports News
Get well soon Alec. I was hoping to see you at cropredy this year.
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Alec in Hospital
I visited Alec noon, saturday 8 July.
I had to use nearly all of the one hour slack in my schedule to be on time for the noon visiting hours. I was expecting heavy holiday travel, but the only holdup was a truck which has crashed off the embankment and needed to be hoisted back on the road.
Alec was very tired but, according to his brother-in-law, doing much better than yesterday. He said he had slept reasonably well which was why he couldn’t see anyone earlier that morning. I thought he looked well, considering; certainly much better than I had anticipated. Somewhat confused about the time of day; hardly surprising, if you doze off now and again. I took a few pictures and will see about posting them somewhere, later.
His hemoglobin levels are now stable which may signal an end to his internal bleeding. He still has a chest drain which seems to be troubling him when breething. And his stomach is protesting about lack of drink and food as he’s still not allowed food or drink so he has to make do with “aqua sprays”; both to keep cool and to keep his mouth moist.
Kidneys and spleen are still suspect, but they aren’t worried about his liver (contrary to earlier messages). He gets paracetamol but not much else by way of pain control (he didn’t like the morphine much and his happy as is).
He demonstrated the all-important art of toe-wiggling and was completely “there”. But speaking tired him very much, so not quite the talkative Alec we all know. So I read him the batch of well-wishes which arrived before I collected them at 7am this morning.
Alec thanks you all for your kind messages and thoughts.
It’s still unclear when he will be moved home or to which hospital; this was somewhat hampered by the inability to call 800 numbers from abroad. Mandy will stay in France for the next few days.
Mandy was off collecting Alec’s belongings, so I did not see her.
All in all, I’m pretty positive about Alec’s condition.
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WordPress
Yeah, gotta say that WordPress is quite nice to use and Rich Boakes extended version of Akismet is damn good at catching anything that gets past the preventative measures I’ve already got..
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re: Alec in Hospital
Sunday 9th Update: Dear all
I have had a chat with Mandy on the phone and so have various news and stories to share:
Gille has visited Alec today and as with other visitors has done a great job with translations.
Alec is now confirmed as having 9 broken ribs on the left side and 1 broken rib on the right.
He has been allowed some water today – this (I’m told) made “more pleased than if the french nurses has stood on the table and stripped – and they are pretty nurses!”
It does however preclude any operation on his leg tomorrow for which he will eventually have to be starved again.
He had a very bad ‘down’ from a dose of morphine today, which he said was worse than the pain it was stopping – so he is now refusing any more morphine.
Mandy was watching the World Cup final – rooting for France because she says everyone has been fantastic. One fun example: when they left the hospital after their first visit having driven/eurostared through Thursday night they needed to find a named hotel on the edge of the massive 15 block hospital complex. They asked an ambulance driver outside the ICU for directions – he took one look at them, opened the back doors of his ambulence, ushered them in, and took them direct to the hotel!
Alec’s sister Louise is now in Droitwich having flown in from the US. She was hoping to join Mandy in France on Monday but this now seems doubtful. Some of you will know that Mrs. Muffett (the matriach of the family) has for some years been mentally unstable. It would appear this is now becoming impossible to handle as Louise and Dr Muffett (Alec’s Dad) have had both the police and the paramedics out today, and are currently awaiting the social services, as it seems possible that Mrs. Muffett will have be sectioned. I feel so sorry for them all.
At present Mandy is trying to arrange for Alec to be put into a BUPA hospital either in Worcester, or Edgebaston (Birmingham), as the private hospital at Droitwich (closest to the family) can not accept trauma patients as it doesn’t have the relevant kit. Mandy’s current guestimate is that even if healing progresses smoothly, Alec is likely to be in hospital for 4-5 weeks minimum. However there is no date set for Alec to be moved yet.
Bart visits tomorrow, and he (I think) will be taking Alec’s panniers into care as when the move does come she may well have to make her own way back by Eurostar, or if not conditions will may be cramped in the air ambulance.
So that’s about it for tonight – guess Bart will provide the next news. Take care all
Rachel
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re: Sad news
Get well soon Alec!
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re: Alec in Hospital
Thanks for keeping us all posted. I’m checking this page daily to get updates, and passing on the info to mutual friends, and I’m sure lots of other people are, too. It sounds like Alec is in good hands, and has lots of supportive people around too. I’ll add his mum and the rest of his family to my prayers.
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re: Alec in Hospital
Yup I’m checking this blog daily for updates too.
Get better soon Alec, we’re all thinking of you. I’m certainly praying!
Juts remember, when you’re better we want one of your incisive posts giving a detailed comparison between French and British hospitals!
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Alec on monday
This morning I dropped by the Sun office to print out another batch of messages from people and to pick up Peter.
We headed for Lille, met Mandy and picked up some of Alec’s kit (as it won’t fit in either ambulance, plane luggage compartment or the eurostar luggage rack), so that he can get it when I’m next in the UK.
At the hospital we walked in on Alec enjoying a fruit salad, and the remains of a bowl of soup where visible as well — so he was allowed both food and water.
He is still feeling quite knackered, and the difficulty one of the nurses had to find venal blood earlier this morning left him with black and blue underarms. There were now fewer tubes (fluids and vitamins), his oxygen mask was replaced by a small line, and he was — presumably to preserve his Englishness — being given brown sauce.
(Well, it’s hemoglobin, actually, but it happens to look like brown sauce. He felt it was making him feel a whole lot better, “properly inflated” as he put it)
One of the doctors dropped by and told us that they have no objections to Alec being moved, if it’s done with a doctor present and a suction machine for the tube in his chest.
His leg would be operated on in the UK (for which he’d need to be starved again, but he was happy that he’d have some food in the mean time, at least), and there would be physiotherapy to get his lungs back up to spec — but overall things are looking pretty good.
With this good news Mandy went off to call the insurance company to see about arranging Alec’s repatriation (with a bit of luck he may be on his way to England tomorrow) while we chatted with Alec for a bit.
He was happy with all the well wishes he’s received and said to pass his “thank you” back to you all.
Bart
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re: Sports News
Alec,
just today I learnt, that you were injured severly, and am glad to read on your comments page, that you do recover quite well.
All the best from me! Hope to see you soon!
Matthias
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July 10 (2)
I just had Mandy on the phone who told me that Alec won’t be moved the coming few days; based on the information the insurance company has gotten from the hospital they’re happy with the care Alec is getting in Lille, and — more importantly — feel he’s still not sufficiently well recovered to travel (as there’s still a couple symptoms that may indicate his kidneys need to heal some more).
Mandy is going to follow up with the insurance company to make sure that if Alec is moved it’s to England (as there’s been some talk about moving him back to the hospital in St.Omer), and that he will get repatriated when it is possible and medically sensible to do so.
We know that that will not happen before thursday (and, if it’s not thursday it probably won’t be friday — Bastille Day — nor the weekend).
Bart
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re: Alec in Hospital
Just found out today as I’ve just returned from my holiday. Get well soon, Alec. The photo in Geoff’s blog is encouraging.
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re: Alec on monday
Keep up the good work in supporting Alec. It means a lot to have someone look after you who understand the language even when the nurses are pretty!
Alec- get better quick You have the Perseids to look forward to!
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re: Sports News
Sorry to read about your accident Alec, hope you get well soon, cheers Mats former Sun IT Ops employee and motorbike’r (http http://www.triumphtiger.net/clubscandinavia/medlemmer/mats_fredholm.htm)
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re: Sports News
Sorry to read about your accident Alec, hope you get well soon, cheers Mats former Sun IT Ops employee and motorbike’r (http http://www.triumphtiger.net/clubscandinavia/medlemmer/mats_fredholm.htm)
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Tuesday July 11
I got a call from Alec’s sister and this time she had very little to say… as Alec did most of the talking himself (courtesy of a voice recorder).
Here’s a transcription of (most of) Alec’s message:
Hello, it’s Alec again for another broadcast, from a bedstead in Lille hospital. It’s a hot and sticky day and I’m tied to the bed with various bits of rubber tubing and in a most awkward position that you would not like to find yourself in.
Life is improving, especially now that I’ve got some food down me, yoghurt and bits of soup and it’s quite nice generally.
Anyway, so today is tuesday and the way things are looking it may be that by wednesday at some point, at wednesday come midnight I’m going to be (…), and I by wednesday afternoon I expect to be… [now apparantly talking to a doctor or nurse that’s walked in] Some nice people on the voice recorder. Hello. Possibly tomorrow I’ll be going in for an operation on my knee, get my tibia refixed.
(…)
Pardon the interruption. There just was a very nice doctor who told me I shouldn’t be drinking absolutely anything after 2am this morning in case I have a knee operation tomorrow, as I mentioned. They will attach one bit of my tibia to another bit of my tibia with some bolts and screws, and I’ll be in a fit state to have a cast put on it which should make life easier.
I’m still not sure when I’ll be back in the UK because that depends on the state of the rest of my body. They’re mildly concerned about the state of my kidneys and about my bile ducts.
All things going well it’s not impossible I may be in a hospital in Birmingham on Saturday and starting to recuperate. On the other hand it may be monday because we have Bastille Day coming up, a national holiday which will probably upset everything. That’s the way of things.
But anyway, I did want to say thank you to you guys for supporting me, sending me cards and phone messages and so on and I’ll be in touch as much as I can via means like this when I’m back in the UK. Thanks an awful lot, take care, big hugs. Bye Alec.
(…)
Hi, this is Alec. (..) this is just a short bit to say I feel triumphant having eaten two thirds of an egg and some bits of white aspargus — the first solid food I’ve had since thursday morning, I think. Another update in the morning. Thanks again.
bart
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Get well
Hey Alec,
get well soon ! Great to see how you are recovering.
All the best from Michael & Claudia
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re: Tuesday July 11
Hi Alec,
I was so sorry to hear about your accident. I would have sent my get-well-soon wishes before, except for a bone-headed http content filtering system at work that seems to regard you as a computer criminal. Oh the irony.
I’m glad to hear that you’re getting well looked after. My brother once spent a very uncomfortable week or so, with serious head injuries in a French ICU after a hang-gliding accident in the Alps. I hope there isn’t anyone smoking Gauloises in the bed next to you..
Anyway, my thoughts are with you and your family.
Get well soon, Pete
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re: Tuesday July 11
Hi Alec,
also from Berlin the best wishes for you. W’ll see us on Suntour 2007!I’m sure you work on that.
Michael
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re: Tuesday July 11
Hi Alec,
best wishes!
Mathias
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re: Alec in hospital
I read about your situation on Geoff’s blog.
Hope you’ll be able to read these on your own.
Cheers, Henk
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Best Wishes
Alec,
Sounds like you’re recovering pretty well. Hang in there and get well soon. We all need you back in the swing of things.
Take care,
Steve Hanna Former Sun Labs, now Juniper
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Update on Alec Wed Night
Alec will have his leg pinned tomorrow and then set. He is doing well, has been prepared for the operation today. We are hoping that he will come back to England in 3-4 days. Other injuries are improving, although I think ribs are still very painful. Thanks for all the kind thoughts.
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Wednesday July 12
Alec was scheduled to have his knee/leg operation today, so didn’t get any food or drink while preparations were being made (scans etc), though as they could not do one particular examination in time the doctor’s decided to move his operation to tomorrow morning (first thing).
So, after a day without food he did get dinner and ate the whole thing, ate a banana, and he got a ‘real’ cup of tea, courtesy of his sister (who made it), some compassionate Brits staying at her hotel (who provided the tea), and the hospital staff (who provided access to their kitchen area).
Bart
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re: Sports News
Hi Alec,
I was so sorry to hear about your accident in Lille. I hope you’ll recover soon and be able to go back England. I will be in Lille at the end of july, so if you need support with local administration don’t hesitate to ask. best wishes!
bbr
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Fri 14th July – Alec update
Fri 14th Update:
Louise (eldest sis ‘Weez’) has now joined Mandy in France. The operation went well, though Alec found coming round from the anaesthetic horrid. They reckon six weeks before he can put weight on the leg, and obviously in the long-run physio will be required.
Mandy said that as well as a good meal, Alec had another good English Cuppa last night – to go with the box of English tea bags she’d been given, she has now bought a proper stainless steel spoon and a Winnie-the-Pooh melamine cup, from which Alec can drink with the help of a “pippette” (straw to the English) as he is of course still fairly flat on his back.
Mandy is hoping that the Insurance firm do not mess up on the current idea of flying Alec home on Monday. The Lille and Edgbaston Hospitals and their staff have been brilliant – this is not something she says about the insurance guys. Apparently they keep moving the goal posts, and she is finding it very frustrating. Those of a praying style might like to bear this in mind over the w/e!
You will be pleased to hear that Alec has been very concerned as to the technical aspects of his room at the UK hospital – eg. Wireless internet and other things I don’t understand! Once there he will make a list of the things he needs (clothing is well down the list – there’s a surprise!) I will be travelling to Birmingham on Saturday 22nd with hopefully what he has asked for from his house (as I live in the next village).
I will confirm his arrival in UK when we know, so don’t expect to do another posting until Mon 17th July.
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Podcast 2
Alec’s second podcast available at geoffarnold.com/?p=1099
Bart
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re: Podcast 2
I tried to clean the audio up to make Alecs voice a bit clearer and converted from MP3 to Ogg/Vorbis (which shrank it from 3MB to 900KB) – it’s at http://www.csamuel.org/2006/07/15/alec-muffet-hospital-podcast-2/
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Saturday update
I went over to see Alec just before he would travel back to the UK (so I thought). Your wishes and photograph went with me and made a deep impression on Alec. He is seriously moved by all your attention and best wishes for which he thanks you all.
His condition is progressing; nothing has come out of the drain in his chest for a number of days (so the internal bleedings have stopped). In fact the French staff has been willing to remove the drain (which causes Alec quite some discomfort[a]) but they leave it there because the insurance company wants him "drained" for the flight home (which it seems, in contrast to earlier statements, might not be happening anytime soon, see below).
As was mentioned before, Alec and anesthetics don’t mix: he told me that waking up after the knee-operation, the most logical explanation his brain could come up with for his current condition was that someone had registered a domain-name for his knee (can you say "nerd" The only problem he saw, while still in delirium of the anesthetics, was that he didn’t want his knee to have a free "fr" domain…
All fun aside, the current obstacle is that the insurance company is making life terrible by simply not moving Alec to the UK even though the French staff is happy to let him go and the Birmingham hospital is ready to receive him; I send out this message internally maybe someone reading this blog can advise as well:
Folks,
I drove down to France today to visit Alec (writeup on that later) and spent quite some time with Alec and his sisters to convince the insurance company that it is in Alec’s best interest to get him to the UK as soon as possible.
As it turns out, the insurance company (Carole Nash) (or more likely, the intermediary Intergroup Assistance) is continuously coming up with different requirements[1] in order for him to get repatriated and the way it looks now it might not be before Tuesday or Thursday before they can set "the wheels into motion" even though the French medical staff has been OK with moving him for a number of days already.
I’m forwarding a distress call from Alec’s sisters: is there any way Sun (or anyone working for us as an individual) can help in putting some pressure on the folks that need to bring Alec home? I am convinced that keeping him in France any longer than strictly necessary (today actually) will seriously hinder his revalidation and causes him a lot of grief (even though the French hospital staff is excellent, that’s not the problem). Not at all good for Alec, and not at all good for Sun.
So if you have any clue as to which strings we need to pull, or which pressure we can apply (maybe you’ve dealt with something like this and have a good tip), please let me "joep at sun dot com" or "bart blanquart at sun dot com" know.
TIA,
Joep
[1] even though they were OK—after a lot of talking—with trying to get him on a flight back home tomorrow, at 7pm they suddenly came up with the requirement that they needed a copy of the police report before they could start the process… The police report won’t be available before Thursday.
I have one or two pictures of his X-rays which I’ll try to get up here as well: broken ribs and screws in his knee..
[a] Alec to surgeon: "<i>I need to have this drain taken out: my body objects to having extra holes in it</I>" (seriously, it causes the swelling not to go away and keeps him from sleeping)
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Alec on Sunday July 16
I went to Lille earlier today and visited Alec — he’s doing quite well (I found it very noticable how his breathing is now much more relaxed than it was at the beginning of the week). We walked in on him enjoying his lunch, the dessert portion of which vanished extremely quickly…
Alec is, however, bored out of his mind as there’s little to do; he listens to his iPod, does some exercises (some for his lungs and some for the rest of his body, to retain mobility), looks at the shiny coloured things in his room, or the clock, or the emergency light over his bed… all in all, not the most exciting environment.
(He’s in need of his connectivity fix, so here’s to hoping he gets to Birmingham soon… and that they have wifi or so there)
He still has his drain in (because the insurance company wants it there for when (if?) they finally repatriate him), which means he still has an IV in, and which also means a nurse comes in every morning and gets blood for testing (not overly pleasant).
His leg, in a kind of supporting harnass/cast thing, seems to be causing him no trouble (as long as it’s left in peace), so he has now added an ankle-mobility part to his exercise routine.
I have a new “Alec’s adventures in Lille” podcast and will send it to Geoff for posting tomorrow (I can’t get it off my phone right now so won’t be able to send it today – sorry for the delay)
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re: Alec on Sunday July 16
Can anyone tell me what ombudsman type scheme, or other oversight organisation, exists for Insurance Companies?
I’ve also written an e-mail to his MP – probably not much help, but made me feel better – won’t do the insurance any good at least!
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On his way home
I just got a text message from Mandy, Alec’s sister, to let us know that they’re finally moving him (by road, they should be in Birmingham late this evening).
Bart
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Alec’s moving
Latest word is that he *will* be transported to Birmingham later today. ETA: late night.
Thanks to anyone who helped to make this happen.
Joep
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Alec’s moving
Latest word is that he *will* be transported to Birmingham later today. ETA: late night.
Thanks to anyone who helped to make this happen.
Joep
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Alec’s sunday july 16 podcast
available at geoffarnold.com/?p=1102
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6.40pm Mon – not left yet
6.40pm Monday 17th July – Alec has just spoken to me – he STILL HASN’T LEFT the ambulance being over 2 hours late! He is getting very very cross.
Before a Doctor came in, he did ask me to put all visitors off until Thursday at the earliest as when it happens it is going to be a difficult tiring journey, and he would like at least through Wednesday to recuperate. So please (much as he wants to see folk) hold the enthusiasm.
At present at Alec’s request can you please hold arrangements to travel up to see him, until he gives me the OK for visitors.
I will be in touch again, as soon as I get more news
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Alec, more news on 17 July
Alec is actually in an ambulence, on a road in France!
&
you can hear him a couple hours before (t)his departure at: http geoffarnold.com/?p=1105
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re: Alec, more news on 17 July
That’s great news. It sounds like the French medics have done a great job but he’ll be glad to be home.
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Alec safe back in UK
M (sis) writes:
I’ll let Alec vent his recovering spleen on the insurance company that messed him around so much. Even up until lunch time yesterday, Monday, it wasn’t sure when we’d be coming home. Let’s just say we had an almighty ding dong and all of the staff at Intergroup Assurance will wince for years to come if the names Boswell or Muffett are mentioned!
The final plan was that we were due to be collected by a road ambulance from the UK at 5.30 pm French time. They arrived just before 7.30! By the time there’d been the hand over and the British doctor in the evacuation team had confirmed that he didn’t need Alec to have a drip it was about 8pm when we left (7pm in the UK). The team on the ambulance was excellent and being able to communicate in English was such a relief. We did the chunnel (not an something I’d ever entertained experiencing and not something I’d jump at the opportunity to do again) and then up to Maidstone, around the M25, M40, M42 and then in to Birmingham. NEVER have I been so pleased to see Birmingham!
He quite enjoyed the trip home. He was on a special stretcher with the most incredible springing system. All was well unless we hit a big bump that caused him to “bottom out” on the stretcher. That caused the odd sharp intake of breath. Most of the journey I spent with my arm outstretched and my hand outstretched on Alec’s abdomen suppressing the ongoing bounces so that he was stable again before we hit the next one.
He survived the journey home with three oral paracetamol. For Alec the pain of the drip (the French method of administering pain killers) almost exceeded the pain it was meant to be treating! Anyhow, will go in with Dad later today and see how he’s getting on. We couldn’t find Internet access in the room (but it was 2.30 am) but he was pleased to see a TV and as I crawled away at nearly 3 he was having lessons on what channels he’d got!
I certainly think Alec will have a new appreciation for the simple things in life – like a cup of tea, speaking in your mother tongue, and being able to use a “real” loo! (not necessarily in that order).
Anyhow, must go off and have a REAL bath and attend to everything that’s been on hold for the last 11 days. But, before I go, I must say THANK YOU to all of Alec’s friends. The emails, texts, and messages have done wonders to boost his morale and have aided his recovery in immeasurable ways. The visits of Gilles, Joep, Peter, Krystal and multiple visits of Bart were great; not only for Alec but for me too! I feel like I’ve known them all for years. It was also comforting to know that Rachel was sorting things out on the “home front”. Alec is so very lucky to have such a great circle of friends (and such a circle of great friends).
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re: Sports News
Hey Alec, nice pins!
I am referring to your xray that I saw on Geoff’s site.
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re: Sports News
oh very funny! and a bit strange.
“your random quote
anything of importance in your life happened about 10 years ago – atx”
10 yrs ago, I was in a bad accident and relearning to walk for the 2nd time, among other things, LOL!
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re: Alec safe back in UK
Bienvenue a Birmingham! What actual hospital is he in? And what ward? I don’t know if I’ll be able to get over there but I’d like to send him a letter or something.
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re: Sports News
Just found out about this terrible happening – REALLY best wishes for recovery from Ireland. NRM
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