A bushwalk

My husband went for a bush walk.

It didn't quite go to plan...

At the end of the first day he started slipping on a wet rock. He remembers thinking he was going to make a bit of a fool of himself by falling on his behind. But then his let foot got stuck - maybe the boot caught on something? - and the rest of his body kept going...

Thankfully his team included some experienced bush walkers, some of which are even medics, and they did all the right things to get help and make him as comfortable as possible under the circumstances. After twelve hours of agony - and plenty of drugs supplied by the mountain rescue paramedic - he was winched up into the rescue helicopter.

The rescue created some media - here is the link to the first story:

Followed by this one, which includes a short video:

Once in Royal Hobart Hospital the doctors gave him some horse tranquilizer (yes!) and put his foot, which had now been dislocated for 20 hours, back into place. The ankle was broken in all three bones and needed surgery to fix it up again. After some deliberations he flew back to Sydney to have the surgery done by an ankle specialist. Oh, and we were so happy to have him around the corner so we could visit him! The kids were not too sure about what they were hearing - although BooBoo was getting hopefully of no longer being the only wheelie in the house...

The day before his surgery Richard wrote a letter to the local paper to thank his rescue team, which got turned into a feature piece. Here you can read the whole story from his point of view:

So, yes, my man now has a plate and six screws in his left ankle. He spend two weeks in bed and now has a very sexy boot and hobbles around the house on his crutches. He is now allowed to start putting some gentle pressure on his foot. All in all, his foot looks ok now. The wounds have healed very well - and although the ankle is still very swollen (and will stay so for a while yet) the healing is going well. The surgeon is confident that the ankle will be just fine and my hubby will be bush walking again this time next year.

I'm not so sure his wife will let him though...