We drove down to Kenting yesterday and camped on BaiSha Beach. It’s by far the best beach I’ve seen in Taiwan. We left at noon and got there just before three.
The camp-site, where we had planned to stay, was trashed. Everything was gone. There was no one around so we decided to camp there anyway. After setting up, we headed off into town and had some dinner at a Thai place, then came back to the beach with supplies.
By seven the place was deserted. We drank rum on the beach, had a smoke, but it was too cold for swimming. Today we got up early – due to the daylight, and packed up the tent before heading back down to the beach.
The weather had cleared up and it looked pristine, so I hired an umbrella and Robyn lay in the sun. It was a good day for people watching. After lunch we decided to head home before it got too dark.
We stopped every hour to break up the driving. An hour and half into the drive, we were driving down a fairly busy section of highway when up ahead there was a terrific crash. Two bikes went flying across the road. Needless to say, we stopped to see if everyone was ok.
One slightly damaged ankle, possibly a broken nose and one guy with half his foot missing. I can’t get that image out of my head. All the skin off the top of his foot was hanging off to one side, exposing the bone and sinew below. It was like some thing from a horror movie.
It was a good ten to fifteen minutes until the ambulance arrived. R had the right idea and got him to lie down and relax. I really wanted to do something about the bleeding – but what could you do. I had sterile swabs – but there wasn’t enough for the whole foot. I considered a tourniquet – but the cops would be here soon and they would know the best course of action.
The best course of action was to wait for the ambulance, which the police officer did (when he arrived 5-10 minutes after the crash). He ignored the injured and just started directing traffic. I moved the two trashed bikes off the road. I couldn’t stand looking at that foot; I couldn’t stand doing nothing either, so I joined R chilling the dude out. He was taking it pretty well.
When the ambulance did arrive, they didn’t do anything but put him on a trolley, stick him in the van and drive off. I will never forget the look on the face of the ti-cur dude (Taiwanese version of a bogan/redneck). It looked as if he were going to cry with empathy.
I just felt ill with sympathy. As soon as the ambulance headed off, so did we: very, very carefully.
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