Allereerst iedereen van wie ik een smsje, belletje, mailtje of berichtje hier heb ontvangen, hartelijk dank allemaal !
Doet een mens goed
En Marco en Lisette, bedankt voor dit initiatief, ik hoorde zelfs van mijn ouders dat je nog meer hebt willen doen, je bent een reuzevent !
Dan nu maar het verhaal wat er precies gebeurd is
50 km before San Pedro de Atacama I pitched my tent in a dry riverbed.
I didn´t think further, simple as that.
( later I heard only 20 mm of rainfall a year, normally )
This night was going to be far beyond normall .....
When I was reading, after dinner, in my tent, I heard noise, a rumbling noise and I felt the ground moving a little bit, like with an eartquake
I was thinkig at first maybe a truck passing by but the sound stayed.
So I looked out of my tent and was shocked of what I saw, the right side of the former dry river, there was a very strong and fast movement of water, mud and stones.
Oh boy, no good I thought, I have to get out of here and started like crazy to pack my bags.
But halfway the water was allready under my tent so I left my tent, first safed my bike by bringing it to a higher part in the riverbed ( later it was found there, if only I would have stayed there too but no .... ) got back to my tent for my bags, grabbed 4 of them, waded through enkel deep water to the higher parts where my bike lay down safe and then tried to cross the enormous stream, with my bags, to the other side ( only 6 meters ) but you allready guessed, I guess, The water / mud grabbed me ...
So I was dragged down the river and looked death into his eyes.
I tried to stay flat and breathe but sometimes was dragged under for several seconds, spinning around.
At one point I thought, oke, maybe I will not survive this and die.
Fine.
But if I have something to say NOT by drowning.
That seemed such a bad way to go.
So I fought and fought, mud in my eyes, ears, mouth, even lungs ( later I coughed some little stones up ) and maneged to keep above.
After 2 or 3 horrible kilometers like that I finally managed to crawl to the land and lay down.
Now, in the water I allready had see my right leg in a strange angle.
Heavily broken.
In the water I lost my glasses so I could´t see.
Dark.
Raining a little.
So cold.
Not knowing where to go ( and how, I couldn´t walk ! )
Some lights around me, far far away ...
So I just lay there and wanted to die, I didn´t see other solutions anymore ...
But it was so cold and I thought of my family.
I thought, no Lars, you cannot do that to them, maybe they will never find you here and that uncertainty I just couldn´t do that to them.
I guess my love for my family saved me...
So I started to crawl , sort of following the river.
500 crawls and th lay down for a while.
500 more
and so on.
With a severly broken leg, on bare hands and bare knees, through a sandy, rocky area.
O it was so painful.
Later I found out I crawled for 7 hours untill finally police found me ( well,I was crawling to their patrol car lights ) and I was saved.
But onfortunately they cannot save my leg.
So tomorrow morning I having my firts ( yeah ! ) amputation, just below the knee they promised me.
Have to go now for a washing session which I like
Greetings Lars
Het verhaal doet me denken aan "Touching the void".
