Posted on 02/12/2021 5:46:24 PM PST by EdnaMode
Actress, author and humanitarian Ashley Judd is recuperating at a South African trauma unit after almost losing a leg in a “catastrophic” fall in a Congo rainforest.
In an Instagram Live chat with New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof – watch it below – Judd, speaking from her ICU bed, says she was walking in a Congo rainforest when she tripped over a fallen tree, shattering her leg. Judd, a frequent visitor to Congo, was doing work to track the Bonobos, an endangered great apes species.
Describing “an incredibly harrowing 55 hours” during which she was transported, in part by being hand-carried out, in part on a six-hour motorbike trip, from the remote rainforest location to a medical center in South Africa, Judd holds up the stick that she was biting to distract from the pain, “howling like a wild animal.” The actress, sister of Wynona Judd and daughter of Naomi Judd, recalls fading in and out of consciousness as she went into shock, repeatedly reciting “the Lord is my shepherd I shall not want” from Psalm 23.
Judd tells Kristof that despite the pain – “at the very edge of my edge” – and fear, she was fully aware of her “privilege” in having the opportunity to transfer to a fully equipped medical facility. Most Congolese people, she says, would have remained in the village, lost the leg and maybe a their life.
“The difference between a Congolese person and me is disaster insurance that allowed me 55 hours after my accident to get to an operating table in South Africa,” she says, adding that Congo villages lack not only electricity but “a simple pill to kill the pain when you’ve shattered a leg in four places and have nerve damage.”
Judd further explained on her own Instagram page, writing that she decided to speak out about the accident to spread the word about “what it means to be Congolese in extreme poverty with no access to health care, any medication for pain, any type of service, or choices.”
She continues, “Please join us and learn what it is like for much of the world – and how you can help. Bonobos matter. And so do the people in whose ancestral forest they range and the other 25,600,000 Congolese in need of humanitarian assistance.”
Thaaaaaat’s a shame.
I don’t think she’ll go off the grid in the future.
Well, she will milk a lifetime movie out of this one.
The Congo is closer to Wakanda than S.A...
I guess I might think the same way were I Ashley Judd but I am not her and neither is the rest of the world who has to live with “it is what it is.”
Have a friend who, while on a missions trip to South America, was in a bus accident that nearly cost him his leg.
If it had not been for his parents flying down and getting him evacuated back stateside, they would have amputated it right there.
As it is, and after 6 months in a cast after surgery and some extremely painful physical therapy (like pass out from the pain), he walks with virtually no limp unless he’s very tired.
So, Ms. Judd has a long row to hoe, I’m sure.
OH NO!!!
Anyways.
These celebrities make me sick. What Africa needs is free market capitalism, education, and the rule of law, and none of this stuff would be happening to them.
TTIUWOP
This Thread Is Useless Without Pictures
Prayers up for this lost and confused child of God.
My first thought was - Hallelujia! At the worst she turned to God for solace, I pray she stays that way.
I don’t need to go to the Congo to have an understanding of the poverty that exists there.
It’s why I stay home.
A couple of old cowboys I know were elk hunting in the mountains when one had his horse roll on him and break his leg. They splinted him up and rode out. When asked how long it took he said 3 bottles of Jack.
When will she be coming out with the claim that she was sexually assaulted during her trip back?
Back in the 90's a co-worker's spouse had a job at one of the big mines in Eastern Congo. He made big bucks but then the wars came and the mine shut down. It's in one of the regions where women now make money servicing UN troops.
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