On Nov 19, 2:21 pm, sf > wrote:

>
> How's your husband's leg doing? I could only say "thank goodness it
> happened in Australia instead of some third world country" when I read
> about it.

Well, I’m not exactly sure what you were reading but in fact we were
at anchor in the very remote bay of Port Resolution on the island of
Tanna in the Vanuatu Island Group when the infection began. It was
quite a frightening time.

Once we realized he was in serious trouble we contacted the nearest
hospital in the town of Lenakel on the other side of the island and
they sent an ambulance (pickup truck with a three inch foam pad in the
back) to take him to the doctor. We left the boat that day in the
care of fellow cruisers thinking we would be back in a day or two.

The ride to Lenakel took nearly two hours over dirt track and the
hospital was horrible. Very third world. The only doctor was a
volunteer from Canada and tried to help but he didn’t have much to
work with. His drug supply was minimal but he did give Mike a daily
IV dose of antibiotics. After a few days the infections was still
getting worse so the good doctor Dan told us that we needed to get to
Port Vila (Capital city of Vanuatu) where he knew of a private
hospital who would be better able to help us.

So, off we flew to Port Vila and the doctor there took one look at
Mike’s leg, shook his head and said we couldn’t do anything for him
and that Mike needed to get to a “real” hospital ASAP. He also told
us point blank that he was pretty sure that Mike was going to loose
his foot and possibly his whole leg. You can imagine the terror we
felt.

The next morning Mike was on the first flight out to Sydney
accompanied by a nurse. After he left, the ambulance driver took me
over to the yacht club where I could find some friends to stay with
while I looked for crew who could fly back to Tanna and help me sail
Arabella to the safer anchorage of Port Vila. Once that was
accomplished I few out to Sydney to be with him.

Fortunately Mike still had his foot when I arrived but he had a nasty
hole on his ankle where the doctors dug out the worst of the
infection. They eventually covered up the wound with a skin graft and
today he is doing great.

While Mike was still in the hospital we hired a delivery skipper to
bring the boat to Australia and we are delighted to be back on board
and living a normal life once again. Normal for us anyway. ;-)

Thanks for asking.

Barb
s/y Arabella
www.sailinglinks.com