Having fun and feeling ok was obviously just a little too much to ask. We were having a great time in the foam until someone got hurt. Isn't that always the way. Well this is where my journey for the next couple of days began.
A group of 3 young guys had been in the foam with us when one of them slid across the floor and into the wall at the other end. In the process he dislocated his knee cap. As I was sober and knew first aid I got out of the foam to check all was ok. Well the drunken yobbos around wanted to try and just smash the knee cap back into place. I stepped in and told them they were not touching it as if they stuffed it up it would void the travel insurance. I had the staff get me a towel and plenty of ice to pack the knee in and call a doctor in. Upon hearing the doctor would be at least an hour I organised for several guys to carry him out the front and load him into a 4 wheel drive that reversed up to the entrance.
All loaded into the car we headed off along Jalan Legian to BIMC. We had only travelled about 100m when the driver informed us it would be Rp 200 000 fee for the trip. After a lot of arguing, yelling and the driver pulling over to offload us we disgustingly agreed to pay Rp100 000. We just needed to get this guy to hospital and the driver knew it. He had us over a barrel with a shotgun at our heads, so to speak.
We arrived at BIMC and were taken straight through to emergency. Quentin, the guy who hurt his leg, was finally given some pain relief while myself and Dylan, one of his mates, completed the paperwork and told the doctors what had happened. Marc, Quentin's other mate, had taken off back to their hotel, Troppozone, to see if he could get Quentin's travel insurance papers from the safe deposit box. Unfortunately at this hotel you are unable to access the safe deposit boxes after a certain time so Marc returned empty handed. As medical treatment will not commence until you have money or insurance papers, a quick whip around was done between the three of us to raise the needed funds to get treatment under way.
First option - sedate Quentin and attempt to relocate the knee cap. Well after 2 attempts and Quentin being in too much pain it was onto the next stage.
Next stage was to take him to surgery and attempt relocation while he was under. Well more funds were needed for this so we needed to try and raise more. A few phone calls to police stations back in Australia got a message to Quentin's family (several members of his family are police officers). Finally armed with a credit card number for his mother we thought this would get the ball rolling. Wrong, can't use a credit card in Bali without the owner being there to sign for it. Back to the drawing board. By this time it was morning so Marc did a dash back to Troppozone to collect the travel insurance papers. Finally we had the papers we needed and Quentin could go into surgery. Marc and Dylan headed back to their hotel to get some sleep while I decided to stay as the doctors were coming to me for permission for treatment etc. I was also liasing with Quentin's family and the embassy with updates. Prior to going into surgery the doctor explained that if it was an easy relocation Quentin would be out in about 30 mins. If not they would have to cut his knee open to relocate the knee cap and this could mean several hours in surgery.
Well as you might have guessed, 30 mins came and went and I knew things had not gone as planned. Eventually about 3 hours later he emerged from surgery with a full leg cast. The doctors had to cut his leg open to relocate the knee cap. The final medical report said they weren't too sure they had it back in the correct place so Quentin would need to follow up once home.
This was the first trip for the 3 boys and they had only been in Bali a couple of days prior to this happening. Through discussion we decided to move Quentin to the Barong with me once he got out of hospital so that I could make sure he was ok. After 3 days in hospital Quentin was discharged and unfortunately spent most of the next couple of days cooped up in a hotel room. We did manage to take him to do some DVD shopping but that was about it. On the day the boys were leaving we went to the Garuda office and arranged a wheelchair, kerbside pickup at the airport along with access to the lounge. We were not able to upgrade him as business class was full so he had to fly home economy. I just rang a Garuda contact and requested seating with maximum leg room.
For those of you who might think travel insurance is not worth it - Quentin's final bill was Rp60 million (AUD $7,500.00) - worth every cent he paid for insurance as he did not pay a cent. My motto has always been - if you can't afford travel insurance, you can't afford to travel.
This all took up pretty much all of Saturday and Sunday however there were a couple of other things I got done so I will put them in a separate post.