News on the injured person from yesterday is not encouraging. I won’t name him but it’s a chap we do know. He’s the boyfriend of a girl who works at one of the whale watching outfits here. We’ve seen him at a lot of the parties and is always energetic. He was up on the crows nest on Infinity when he fell, perhaps 30ft or so, landing on his back on the roof of the boat missing all deck hardware and other protuberances. Ben witnessed the landing as was soon alongside while helping to stabalize him while an on board doctor examined him more closely. There were clear head injuries but he was soon conscious and able to move fingers and toes. They got him ashore strapped to a surf board which was fortunate as the dock they landed on collapsed leaving the shore party in the water and the injured chap floating on the surf board. He is now currently in the hospital. There are medical staff here in Tonga but no specialists and calls have been made for additional help. It’s all very sobering.
From what I heard of the effort to get the patient ashore and my involvement with the individuals coordinating the effort I was very impressed with how they handled the very difficult situation in a less than perfect environment. The crew of Infinity deserve a lot of credit for their response to the wayward antics of one of their guests which could have been tragically worse.
Ben and I are currently ashore enjoying the free internet at the Aquarium Cafe. I have managed to upload a lot of recent photos so if you page back through the last few entries you should see some new pics. The earliest uploaded are those of Ben’s chemistry lesson.
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