The FOOT Experience

As we head out for a manicure and pedicure, yes we both indulge in this luxury 😀 It's the moments we take to make ourselves presentable to the landlubbers 😂 Don't wanna scare anyone off.  With this in mind we have no concept of what the next few brief moments will hold for us, something that has the possibility of totally changing the course of our life. A memory and a lesson that we will carry with us forever.

The boat starts to bump against the jetty, this is truly not a very comfortable feeling for us and Intle Breeze certainly does not enjoy it either. We both move to the stern and start to adjust the fenders and the lines, to stop the discomfort of the constant bump each time the swell pushes us against the jetty. In a split second everything spirals out of control, as Eric is adjusting a fender, while sitting on the sugar scoop, his foot slips off the boat and gets stuck between the jetty and the 25 ton boat, getting pushed back against his foot. With the sound of bones crushing and intense pain, he is still able to apply some kind of  logic, while screaming in pain, he uses his right foot and push against the jetty, while  twisting the trapped size 11 and manoeuvring it out of the clutches of horror. It is possible I may have had some choice words in this moment like WTF are you doing? 😳 Actually I might also have screamed it out rather loud. 😑  As he fights through the shock and collapses back onto the sugar scoop, neighbouring boats come rushing over as we all know how easily things can go wrong.

As life would have it Lester, Angela and Makyla had left the boat very early in the morning for their adventure and that is exactly when I realised Eric and I need to be very aware of our own capabilities when we are alone, as sailing comes with many challenges an risks.

Our good samaritan sailors took over dealing with securing the boat, while I dealt with ice packs and some very intense pain killers, bandages etc. While my head is running and wondering where is the hospital how do we get there 😩 Never have I been so grateful for a very well stocked first aid kit and a few good souls coming to our rescue. The universe always has a way of throwing you a life line, you just gotta see it, a local sailor from Salvador Bahia, whom we had met and had a few beers with last night, showed up on the jetty in just the right moment, managed to get Eric off the boat, believe me on this jetty it was a challenge when both your feet were functioning,  he organises a wheel chair, gets us to the hospital and helps us navigate the system. By now I am becoming very well aware of the fact that no one speaks Englsih, hardly even broken english. 

Thanks to Marcello, we navigated the hospital pretty easily and got some X-rays done, the doc said it was not possible to see the bone damage due to the extreme swelling, so we needed to keep the foot elevated and well iced, and go for an MRI in about 4 days. By now my very strong South African opioids from my first aid kit had kicked in and there was no more pain, so we decided we can go home and wallow in our sorrow or we could just go and get those manis and pedis... well what do you think we did 😂 yup manis and pedis it was.

The next 2 months came with a mountain of challenges, the biggest one LANGUAGE LANGUAGE. Thank you google for the amazing translate app. Together with google translate I navigated the hospitals, nurses, doctors, medication, ubers and attendants. After the MRI the doctor saw that there was a number of fractured bones, which required a relatively long surgery, involving plates and screws, as well as months of physio. At this moment, we have no idea if our dream of sailing has come to an end, or if we will manage to continue in some way and if so in what way!  One of the biggest take away from this for us, was how this amazing city of Salvador surprised us. Our travel insurance gave us the option to go home to Sweden for surgery or have it in Salvador, by this time we had already dealt with the system in a small way and clearly understood that Eric was in very good hands. So we made the decision to stay and have it done in Salvador Bahia.

With out a doubt in my mind, he had some of the very best treatment in the world with out question, the hospital was among the best I have ever seen, ranging from facial recognition when visiting to the highest end of equipment, despite the very extreme language barrier, the beside manner of doctors and nurses and keeping me informed via google translate was simply outstanding. If I needed a surgery I would seriously consider having it done in Brazil.

Cutting a very long story short,  this is the true reason why we got stuck in Salvador Bahia for 3 months, but through this insane freak accident we ended up having the most amazing time and countless experiences that I will continue to share with you after this.