Part Two-September 17, 2013

I was so excited for Tuesday's afternoon elephant bath. The cool water was going to feel so refreshing from the beating, hot sun. I imagined the water fight. The elephants would be splashing and commanded to spray everyone with water from their trunks. I was for sure going to get the mahout who had dumped water on me the day before. It was going to be a blast. By the end of it, I knew I would be soaked from head to toe! 

Only that water fight never happened. We never made it to the river. Upon crossing the main road, I knew something was wrong. Suk Chai tucked his head down as if searching for food, but there was no grass nearby. Immediately after, I felt my mahout grab a hold of me right as Suk Chai made a complete U-turn and began running back across the road. 

Elephants are such large animals that even when they're just walking, the ride isn't smooth. Their entire body shifts with each step. Suk Chai had walked briskly before, which made it difficult to stay on. So imagine an elephant running scared...

Immense fear came over me such that I had never experienced before. The feeling was of pure terror. I wasn't sure what to do as I felt myself slipping off the elephant. I looked to see what I could grab onto. I saw the chain, but thought twice before taking hold. In that moment, I couldn't remember which leg the chain was actually attached to and which side was just draped over the neck. I knew if I happened to grab hold to it and it was the draped side, I would be dragged on the ground and possibly even stepped on. My next best option was to grab hold to his left ear.

My mahout fell off almost immediately, given he only had me to hold onto and I was already being thrown halfway off. Once my mahout was off, I wasn't sure if it was safe to stay on this elephant that was running wild. By this time my right leg was still around his neck, but my body was hanging halfway off the left side. I held onto that ear with both hands as tightly as I could. The thought crossed my mind, whether or not I should keep holding on or if it would be safer to drop. That thought didn't last long though because shortly after Suk Chai crossed back over the main road, I hit the ground hard losing my right sandal in the process. I honestly cannot tell you if I just slipped or if I let go on purpose. I can't remember for the life of me. 

I do remember landing on my back and thinking, "That hurt". I sat up and saw my mahout run past me chasing Suk Chai. I immediately stood up and walked back toward the street looking for someone to help me. I was trembling as I screamed, "Somebody help me! I just fell off my elephant! Somebody help!" I was in shock. I was later told that my face was pale as a ghost. I wasn't even aware of my injuries at this time. The sweetest European man stopped to help me. I felt so alone, not knowing what to do when he stopped his car in the middle of the road to help me, a stranger. I remember his right wrist was injured. He had it wrapped, but that didn't stop him. He sat me down and gave me bottled water to drink. He then began to pour the water over my cuts and scrapes to wash off the dirt and blood. By this time, the mahouts, volunteers and elephants who were ahead had turned around and were headed back to check on me. The European man asked me where my shoe was. I pointed to my right and he said, "Good memory!" He retrieved my shoe then proceeded to gently put it back on my right foot. I kept thanking him for helping me. My mahout had now returned, as had all the others. The mahout who had poured water on me the day before, was helping me get my left sandal on, which had come half way off during the fall. 

They helped me stand up and my mahout put me on the back of a motorbike. I had no idea who was driving this motorbike or where he was even going to take me. But I did know I didn't want to get blood on this guy's shirt. I was going to attempt to hold on with one arm, but my mahout grabbed my bloody arm and wrapped it around this guy's waist…so much for trying to save his white t-shirt. The experience itself was traumatizing enough and the fact the mahouts don't speak English made it even worse. So all I could say to the random guy on the motorbike was, "Jin! Get Jin!" He understood and said, "Yes." He drove me to a patio area where he helped me off his bike and sat me down on a bench. He held up his hand implying for me to wait and he would go get Jin. As I sat there alone, I began to cry. 

The random guy on the motorbike was back in minutes and Jin was right behind him. Jin immediately asked what happened and put me on his motorbike to take me to the local hospital. As we were about to drive away, the random guy felt the need to tuck the strap of my watch back under the loop. Jin almost took off while that guy was still holding my arm. That would've been bad. I had never worn my watch to bathe my elephant before, but for some reason I decided to wear it this day. It now has a nice scratch across it to remind me of the fall, as if the scars on my body aren't enough of a reminder. 

The ride to the hospital was short, but the breeze stung my scraped body. We passed the other elephants, which were finally headed to the river for bathing. Before entering the hospital, we had to take our shoes off. This was quite difficult, considering I had just fallen off an elephant, so Jin had to assist me. When we walked in, Jin spoke in Thai to the doctor explaining what happened. The doctor looked at me then replied to Jin that my injuries were minor and I could go bathe my elephant then return to get cleaned up. When Jin told me this later, I just laughed. The medical treatment is so different in other countries, especially when you're at a hospital in the jungle. Luckily, Jin told the doctor to clean me up right away. My mahout actually came to the hospital to check on me and bring me my room key. He was so sweet. I could tell he was very concerned, even though I couldn't understand what he was saying. Jin later told me that he said he was running after the elephant and was trying to catch me, but he just didn't get there in time. In case you guys haven't seen the picture of me and my mahout, I am bigger than he is. He is this tiny gentle man. I'm pretty sure I would've squished him if he attempted to catch me, but the thought was nice.

I was brought into the only exam room in the hospital and was instructed to lay down with my arm stretched out so she could clean my wounds. I had two scrapes on both sides of my left forearm, which are now scarred. My elbow is still bruised. I had a cut on the palm of my hand, which is scarred now. My right forearm was scraped as well and the tip of my middle finger is still jammed. My right knee was swollen and cut. My right shin was scraped and is still bruised. I had a scrape on the side of my right ankle and foot. Both of my feet ended up swelling slightly. My left knee was scraped, along with my entire left thigh. The first part of the cleaning process wasn't so bad, but the iodine stung like a beast. The doctor told me I was funny because I was slightly freaking out over it all. After she cleaned my arm, I sat up for her to clean up my knee. This is when I noticed my left hand was swollen and I began to feel nauseous. After pointing it out to her, she touched my wrist and said it was only a sprain. She said I could wrap it in an elastic wrap if I wanted. She gave me some pain medicine and told me I could go take a shower to get all cleaned up. That was that. No forms to be filled out. No bills to be paid. I told Jin, "In America we take X-rays!” He laughed and said that they don't have that equipment at this hospital. 

After returning to my room, I took a shower to get cleaned up. Surprisingly, I did pretty well at washing my hair with only one arm. My roommate, Antonia, was a Godsend though! She helped me out so much. She even made me a makeshift sling for my arm. I couldn't get dressed by myself or even put on deodorant. It was very trying emotionally and mentally. I had never felt so helpless before.

I didn't realize how sore my body was until later that night. I also noticed something wrong with my right hip. When I was lying down, I could straight lift my left leg but not my right. I would try so hard, but my right leg wouldn't move. I also could only lie down for roughly an hour before my back would begin to hurt. The only problem was that it hurt to get up from lying down. I couldn't just roll over to the side because on the right my knee and hip were messed up and on my left it was my arm and hand. I wasn't about to wake Antonia every hour or two, so I would lay there for about ten minutes trying to talk myself up to it. Then I would finally count to three, take a deep breath and sit up. It would hurt my neck the worst. After sitting up for an hour, my tailbone would begin to hurt so I would have to lie back down. It was a vicious cycle. Morning couldn't have come soon enough.

Me and Suk Chai Wednesday Morning

Wednesday morning at the camp, I was known as the girl who fell off the elephant. Not that anyone actually called me that because most people at the camp don't speak English, but I knew the story had circulated. Everyone was coming up to me, checking out my injuries. They were all very curious about my arm, which was still in the makeshift sling. I was the talk of the camp. 

I left the camp that day at noon to head back to the city so I could go to the city hospital and get X-rays done. It wasn't until the Orthopedic Doctor, who spoke English, pointed out my elbow, that I even realized it was swollen. I had only been concerned about my wrist and hand. The doctor ordered X-rays on my hand and elbow. The X-ray technician kept trying to make me lay my arm and hand in a position it would not go. Finally he got two X-rays of each. Luckily, they came back clear of breaks and fractures. The doctor told me it would take at least a week if not longer for my arm to fully heal. I asked about wearing a sling and he just said if it makes me feel more comfortable. I was like; can I at least have a real one? (I was using a sarong, which was actually my bath towel.) So he gave me a sling and a bunch of meds to take, half of which weren't even FDA approved in the United States. But hey, they worked and I never got any weird side effects. 

Luckily, I had made some really good friends at the Friends for Asia volunteer house, which is where I returned after my hospital visit. They were all so helpful, well except for Mai. We were in the kitchen fixing food one night when she left me stranded. She just poured herself a bowl of cereal and went on up to our room. I was down there struggling to make a peanut butter and banana sandwich with my one good arm/hand. Twenty minutes later I came hobbling up the stairs trying to balance my sandwich on top of a mug of water. I jokingly said, "Gee thanks for the assistance, Maibritt!" Her reply, "Well you could've yelled for help! I would've heard you." I said, "Yeah, yeah. Thanks a lot." 

But all jokes aside, she was actually very helpful. Since Mai's room was only up one flight of stairs, she let me stay in her room for the remainder of my time there. She assisted me in getting dressed and carried my bags for me when needed. Well, actually only when Kaj was a weakling and complained that my backpack was soooo heavy when it really only weighed around 14kg (30 lbs.). She and Kaj were really awesome though! I'm so glad I got the chance to meet them and hope we will actually stay in touch through the years.

Before I left for the elephant camp that final week, I had mentioned to Mai and Kaj about wanting to come back early. They were all for it. Since it was my last week in Chiang Mai, we all wanted the chance to spend more time together. But I told them it was highly unlikely I'd be able to return midweek with there being four other volunteers at the camp. So when I did show up at the volunteer house that Wednesday afternoon, Mai and Kaj were so surprised. Although bummed about my accident, they joked saying, "Hey, at least you got to come back early!"

Mai, Kaj and I in front of Tha Phae Gate My Last Night in Town

Part One-September 17, 2013

On Monday, the day before the accident, was our first group elephant bathing. My first week at the camp there was only one other volunteer and my second week I was by myself, so the bathing experience was pretty calm. We just scrubbed our elephants and that was that. No water fights. But this Monday afternoon bathing was completely different! The river was higher than normal because it had rained over the weekend, so we had to bathe the elephants in a smaller river. This river was located across the main road and outside of the actual elephant camp. There were five volunteers total, which meant five elephants and five mahouts.  We all were trying to squeeze into this small river, where each elephant actually lays down. It was interesting, but so much fun! Because we were in such tight quarters, it was so easy for a water fight to ensue. Hong, one of the hairiest elephants I've ever seen, loves to play in the water! She would splash her trunk in the water and spray water everywhere. My elephant happened to be lying right in front of her too, so I got soaked. Not to mention, one of the other mahouts thought it would be hilarious to scoop water in his basket and dump it on me! I tried to get him back, but he was out of the water before I really had the chance. Needless to say, I was so looking forward to the Tuesday afternoon bath!

It started off as a normal day. It was Tuesday, September 17th and I woke up around 6:10AM. I got dressed and left with the other volunteers to meet our mahouts to help clean our elephant's stalls and go to the river to bathe our elephants. As usual, we all finished cleaning the stalls around the same time and climbed on our elephants to go to the river. My elephant, Suk Chai, being the smallest of the group, was always towards the back of the pack. This was good though because he did well when following the larger elephants. He didn't scare as easily.

I wasn't a fan of water fights during the early morning bath because it was too cold. There was always a chill in the air in the mornings and evenings at the camp. In the evenings the refreshing coolness was quite nice, but not so much at 6AM when you're about to get waist high in a cold river. The mahout who had poured water on me the day before attempted to splash me on this morning. I was like, hold up. It's way too cold for that. Except he didn't know much English, so actually I just shook my head, hugged myself and shivered. He got the message, so we just scrubbed our elephants and headed back to their stalls.

I went back to my room to shower and get ready for the day. I and Antonia, who was my roommate, had decided to help in the kitchen that morning. We peeled, washed, and chopped cucumbers. Peeled and cut carrots, this stained my hands orange. And we chopped up cauliflower. Afterwards, we went over to the veterinary office where we packed vitamins from 11AM-12PM. Next was the oh, so delicious buffet lunch, which I skipped most days to eat a PB&J sandwich back in my room. I watched an episode of Dexter on my Kindle Fire, almost took a nap, but didn't have time because at 2pm we met up with Jin, the coordinator, to go to the Longneck Village nearby. The Village was amazing. It's so interesting to see how other people live their lives. What they see as normal, we find to be bizarre. The women and children are so beautiful though.

We stopped in the store on the way back where Antonia and I got an ice cream. It was so hot outside that day. I was looking forward to the 4 o'clock bathing and the water fight that I was going to start. When we returned to camp, we changed and got ready to meet our mahouts for the usual afternoon routine.

When I got to my elephant's stall, my mahout was not there yet. I was not allowed to enter the stall without the presence of the mahout for safety reasons. So I said, "Sawadika" (hello) to Suk Chai and he reached his trunk over the wooden posts as if he was returning the greeting. My mahout showed up shortly after and we put on our gloves to begin picking up the elephant poop. Then we swept the leftover grass. While my mahout was unchaining Suk Chai, I noticed that most of the other volunteers were already on their elephants heading towards the river. We were running a bit behind, but I didn't think anything of it. My mahout commanded, "Nah Long" to Suk Chai, which means to lay down. I climbed up onto his neck and my mahout climbed onto his back. Suk Chai still wore a chain around his leg while we were walking. The other end was draped over his neck. He also wore a red rope with a bell attached around his neck. As always, I would put all my weight in my hands, which were on the elephant’s head, to lift myself up so my mahout could move the chain and rope behind me. Otherwise, they would rub and irritate my legs. When riding an elephant, there isn't really anything to hold onto. I would just lean forward with my legs bent backwards and put some weight on my hands which were atop the elephants head. 

We weren't too far behind the other elephants, but they were much farther ahead than normal. I can usually reach out and touch another elephant while I'm on Suk Chai. I would have to watch out because the other elephants would sometimes get so close they would almost run into my legs. Of course, I didn't have to worry about that now because we were walking by ourselves.