The case of the mountain bike accident (not me mum!)

Rotorua is a town built around geysers, and thermal mudpools, with the thermal activity so close to the surface that it literally turns water to steam… The town smells distinctly like boiled eggs, that are a little, but not quite totally rotten. I’m told that it is the sulphur. I didn’t mind it actually. I like eggs. I went for a walk along Rotorua lakeshore on the first day, and somehow by accident I ended up in a suburb of Rotorua that is actually built on top of these geysers. There was steam coming from everywhere! The drains in the road were steaming, puddles of water were steaming, even their lawns were steaming… It was fantastic! I felt like I’d discovered ‘real’ Rotorua… I couldn’t help but wonder, though, why people decide to build their houses in such a place. Surely the ground is unstable? I wonder if the area is cheap. It seemed to be mostly Mauri families living there. At least it wouldn’t cost much to heat in winter, I guess… In this suburb, I wandered into a church, built in 1914 using Mauri designs. It was built on the lakefront, and was lovely and warm inside, very inviting. The highlight for me was a carving of Jesus in the glass at the front of the church; when you are sitting down in the pews, it looks like Jesus is walking on the water of the lake.

The main problem I’ve had since arriving in New Zealand has been finding things to do that are within my quite limited budget… And given how much food and accommodation costs here, that pretty much means that everything I do has to be free. I’ve learnt that there is not much to do here that there is free. But I found a national park in Rotorua that has free hiking. Walking is my favourite form of exploration in a new city, so yesterday I decided to go exploring in that area. Known as the Redwood Forrest, it is a popular hiking spot, and also has some of the best mountain bike tracks in all of New Zealand. I walked to the forrest from town, some 5km, then did a 2 hour hike on track that took me to some beautiful views of the town, the geysers, the lake… I couldn’t believe that people pay $50-$80 to go to the thermal parks, when from the top of the mountain I could see them all!

I had been criss-crossing the mountain bike tracks the entire walk, but hadn’t seen a single bike or rider the entire time, but with only 15 minutes or so to go I saw my first bike racing towards a jump… He flew through the air, only to fall just centimetres short. His bike frame literally snapped in half, and he continued flying through the air to fall on his face. Watching the collision, I ran over to him, certain that I was going to have to perform CPR or something… There was no way you could hit the ground that hard from that height and not be dead, I thought. My head was blank. Despite my first aid training, I could not think of a single thing I was supposed to do. Thankfully, the gentleman was still conscious, and it didn’t appear that CPR was going to be necessary. I didn’t even have a mobile phone, but I yelled out to another rider who was approaching from the other direction, and he had a phone so called for an ambulance. It turned out he was the injured man’s friend, and he happened to be a paramedic. They were both paramedics from the Auckland ambulance service, actually. It made me feel better to watch the paramedic friend almost as helpless as me as to what to do while we waited for the ambulance. Kerry was the name of the man who was injured, and that was just about all he could remember. He had no idea where he was, and kept asking me ‘Where am I?’, and ‘How did I get here?”. He seemed to have a number of head injuries; a broken nose and jaw, as well as memory loss from the bang on the head. He needed to be reminded several times not to try to move his head. While we were waiting, another person stopped to ask if we needed any help. She was a doctor, and her husband worked for the ambulance as a paramedic as well. With three paramedics and one doctor, noone seemed to be able to do any more than me! That seemed to be talking to Kerry, reassuring him, and waiting for the ambulance. I felt MUCH better about being so helpless at first aid. But I was also glad to have them there, because if we did have to do CPR they would certainly be better at it than I would. The doctor called her husband to check on the progress of the ambulance, only to find out that there had been a bus crash on the highway that most of the ambulances in the city had been directed towards. She stayed for a bit, but seeing there was not much she could do, went on her way. Meanwhile, I donated my jumper, jacket, scarf and hat to try and keep Kerry warm, as he was rapidly going into shock. As I feel the cold, and happened to be FREEZING at the time, I felt quite noble giving up my warm layers to an injured man… After about 45 minutes, the ambulance finally arrived, and I got to help assemble the stretcher beneath Kerry, in case of spinal injury, and then lift him into the ambulance. The friend drove his car to the hospital, so the ambulance officer asked if I wouldn’t mind riding in the ambulance with him to make sure that Kerry was okay, and hold onto his bike (in two pieces) in the back. I was happy to, as it would save me money on a bus ride back to town… That sounds callous. I would have been happy to regardless, but as it happened, it also saved me the bus fare back to town. As we rode, Kerry seemed to remember more and more of his life, and he remembered how he got to Rotorua, and even started to remember the jump. When we got to the hospital, the emergency room was chaos due to the bus accident, and I was shunted into the waiting room. I waited until Kerry’s friend arrived, then left. All in all, it was a frightening experience, but kind of exciting too. (Is that wrong?) He did seem to be all right, though, especially as he had gotten his memory back by the time we arrived at the hospital. But I really didn’t seem needed, and it felt strange waiting in the waiting room for… what exactly? So I walked back into town and made use of the hot tub in my hostel… I went back again to the hospital later to check that Kerry was okay, but I didn’t know his surname, and so they wouldn’t give me any information, despite the fact that I actually rode in the ambulance with the guy… Anyhow, I hope he’s okay.