(all photos below courtesy from EL,my travel partner)
This was to be their last meal before the accident. Initially, having had a filling breakfast, they wanted to have a late lunch at Benzilan, three hours from Xiangelila. But having considered the fact that the driver might not be be able to withstand the hunger, we decided to have lunch before leaving Xiangelila, which turned out to be another blessing 'cos thereafter, the victims had had no proper meals till they returned to Singapore.
Every meal on this trip was to be a standard course of 8 dishes with one soup, so this was a sumptuous lunch that day with a little tibetan flavour of grilled Yak meat, yak butter tea and bread like 'ba-ba' (not in pic). We were having a good time joking and taking videos and pics of the meal before we set off from Xiangelila to Deqin via Benzilan.
My travelling partners, though senior in age, are young and cheerful at heart people and i was glad they were in good spirits when i visited them at the rehabilitation centre 2 days ago here. This was a mischievous pose about 1 and half hours just before the accident. The ground, as seen, was wet from drizzle then.
About 2hours later.....
this was where their jeep overturned. Apparently, it spun and lost control, before plunging into the ravine
You can imagine our shock when our jeep turned back to look for them and saw this. After looking anxiously,i was really relieved when i saw all the passengers by the river in the bushes. How the driver cum passengers managed to get out of the jeep is still a blank to them even up to now though they were all conscious at that time, their bones were broken (except for the driver) and the doors could not be opened. It's a guess on their part the driver broke the window glass, got out and dragged the rest out.
The travel agency staff and the local passers-by who stopped and helped....
The ladder-turned-stretcher that was borrowed by one of the passers-by who got it from a village some miles away
By the grace of God, the victims, though clearly in terrible pain and shock, were conscious throughout and not bleeding nor choked with water, neither did they get pneumonia after being in drenched clothes for almost 4-5 hours and lying by the road in cold temperature
The black jacket and some other clothes were given by the people who came to help, themselves not expecting to get the clothes back thereafter, after we' had xhausted all our own jackets and sleeping bags to try to keep the wet injured warm.
The ambulance that finally arrived after ages, some 2hours later, had brakes that didn't work and apparently the hospital sent another vehicle with a mechanic on board to 'jaga' the ambulance while they were half way transporting the patients to the hospital.
The hospital where they were transported to was supposedly the best in Xiangelila;they had no rooms available at first and some patients had to be discharged to make room for the 'foreign' patients. The 'best' hospital did not have a wheelchair available, nor blankets to cover the patients when they arrived drenched; they did not provide hospital clothings nor meals nor much assistance. Much of the service had to be self catered by the patients' family or friends. We were therefore grateful that the travel agency dispatched almost 20 of their staff to help look after the three victims throughout day and night cos just helping to turn the body of one of the victims already required 3 to 4 strong men. The nurses, if they may be called so, also doubled as cleaners and they only cleaned the rooms once a day-in the morning. At other times, the wards were strewn with rubbish (including food remnants) from visitors or even doctors and at all times the toilets in the wards were in the conditions as shown:
The neck brace here was put on one of the victims by the ambulance driver and when the victim was sent for a CT scan, across the road from the hospital, at another building, the doctors there had a big argument about who should take off the brace. Finally, they had to get the ambulance driver to take it off, and i really wondered why????(why the argument? why can't either one of them remove the brace?)
It is a known fact that 关系 or 'connections' is very important for anything to get going in China. Thanks to the boss of the travel agency who seemed to have very good connections with all the right people, the reports we required and much of our requests put across were met expeditiously. We had also visits from the local tourism board directors and the local police also rendered their help. Within short notice, they managed to get the airlines to provide and dismantle 3 seats for the lady who could not get on the SOS flight, as well as a seat for an accompanying passenger, most amazingly, the boss of the travel agency also managed to get the airport to let his men and him into the apron area to help transport the injured lady up the plane ('cos the hospital only provided 2 staff and the airport staff would not have been sufficient)
Comparatively, the red tapes over our side resulting in the delay of the approval and sending of the SOS flight was a real let down....
As the boss of the agency himself puts it, Xiangelila is really a great place to live in, everything, especially the '人情味' (close kinship bonding amongst people) is wonderful but the medical provisions there really cannot make it...pity the locals, especially when they need medical help urgently....
