Broken toes are cheap here
Sep. 12th, 2009 04:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
floraMy husband is a brilliant, intelligent man. He is also a fool.
He broke his toe trying to drive an electric bike (motor scooter). I'm glad he didn't break anything else. And I'm extremely thankful he will not try driving a motorbike in India again.
We've been on campus for a week. The only way to go anywhere off-campus is to hire a taxi, and it's complicated; the driver prefers we do it a day in advance. We have to go through our hosts, since the drivers don't speak English and we don't know Gujarati. We're out in the middle of nowhere, with no easy access to public transit (that we know of), and the road is too busy to try to walk anywhere. There's also nowhere much within walking distance; the city is several kilometers away. So it's not easy to just go out and get into town, certainly not whenever we want.
Michael has been getting increasingly antsy. He's extremely independent, and stubborn. He decided, to solve our transportation woes, he wanted to get a scooter (an electric motorbike or "go-bike"). I told him NO, it's a crazy idea. For one thing, the traffic in India is like nothing we've seen before. It's not as bad as Delhi here, but it's still a nightmare compared to the orderly law-abiding traffic in the US. Another good reason is that he hasn't ever ridden any kind of motorized cycle. He'd never even ridden a motorcycle as a passenger (neither have I). Even though it was possible (no driver's license required), it's still a Bad Idea.
He got the chance. Jagat, the faculty member guiding us around Vadnagar, had a local friend come along. Jagat's friend rode his motorbike, keeping pace with our auto-rickshaw. Michael somehow convinced the friend (but not me nor the professor) to let Michael try riding the bike. Granted, this was on a back road in the middle of nowhere, with no traffic. I'd already told him no, and the prof told him no. But before we could stop him, Michael got on the bike, WITHOUT A HELMET, and slowly rode a few hundred feet down the road on a motorbike with me yelling after him. He managed to turn around and come back, and when he tried to stop the bike fell over directly on top of him! The road, the bike, and Michael made a big Michael-sandwich. We all immediately ran over and the men lifted the bike off him. Michael got up and brushed himself off with no apparent problems. The bike was scratched up, and broke its ignition key off, but its owner and the rest of us were much more worried about Michael. The guys wanted to take him to a hospital to get him checked out, but he said he was fine.
Then after a few minutes, he suddenly sat down against a fence and asked me for water saying he needed water NOW. I carry a small bottle of safe drinking water in my purse, so I gave it to him and he gulped it all. He had gotten dizzy and was worried he might be going into shock (though it was probably just dehydration). It was only after then he realized his toe hurt. The water helped.
After about 20 minutes, he noticed his toe hurting a lot, and said yeah, maybe he should go to the hospital. Now, we live literally right next door to the new hospital the college just built. So we went home. I ran upstairs to put our stuff away, and Michael called me. Turns out the hospital is so new it's not really open yet, and they don't have an X-ray machine. So he and Jagat took off on Jagat's motorbike (again, no helmets). I couldn't go along, so I stayed in and called Seven Corners (the health insurance for Fulbright scholars). They said as long as we called them within two business days, it would be OK.
Medical care here is cheap. He had three fractures in his big toe. It cost Michael only a few hundred rupees (about six US dollars). That covers the X-rays, doctor consultation, bandages and meds. He was in and out in about 20 minutes, despite the hospital ER being crowded with people. His insurance has a $15 copay, so the cost is moot. It's likely my cell-phone call to the health-insurance company cost more than the treatment.
We took this as a sign that Michael should not try driving a motor scooter again. He also was sufficiently alarmed by riding on the back of a motorcycle to the hospital that he asked me not to do it. I'm just thankful this incident happened; the next time he might not have been so lucky. Traffic here is crazy and I would be worried sick any time he tried it.
So now he's thinking of getting a regular bicycle. I'm not sure what I think of that. At least we have another week or two before the bandages come off, to think of alternative ways of transportation.
He broke his toe trying to drive an electric bike (motor scooter). I'm glad he didn't break anything else. And I'm extremely thankful he will not try driving a motorbike in India again.
We've been on campus for a week. The only way to go anywhere off-campus is to hire a taxi, and it's complicated; the driver prefers we do it a day in advance. We have to go through our hosts, since the drivers don't speak English and we don't know Gujarati. We're out in the middle of nowhere, with no easy access to public transit (that we know of), and the road is too busy to try to walk anywhere. There's also nowhere much within walking distance; the city is several kilometers away. So it's not easy to just go out and get into town, certainly not whenever we want.
Michael has been getting increasingly antsy. He's extremely independent, and stubborn. He decided, to solve our transportation woes, he wanted to get a scooter (an electric motorbike or "go-bike"). I told him NO, it's a crazy idea. For one thing, the traffic in India is like nothing we've seen before. It's not as bad as Delhi here, but it's still a nightmare compared to the orderly law-abiding traffic in the US. Another good reason is that he hasn't ever ridden any kind of motorized cycle. He'd never even ridden a motorcycle as a passenger (neither have I). Even though it was possible (no driver's license required), it's still a Bad Idea.
He got the chance. Jagat, the faculty member guiding us around Vadnagar, had a local friend come along. Jagat's friend rode his motorbike, keeping pace with our auto-rickshaw. Michael somehow convinced the friend (but not me nor the professor) to let Michael try riding the bike. Granted, this was on a back road in the middle of nowhere, with no traffic. I'd already told him no, and the prof told him no. But before we could stop him, Michael got on the bike, WITHOUT A HELMET, and slowly rode a few hundred feet down the road on a motorbike with me yelling after him. He managed to turn around and come back, and when he tried to stop the bike fell over directly on top of him! The road, the bike, and Michael made a big Michael-sandwich. We all immediately ran over and the men lifted the bike off him. Michael got up and brushed himself off with no apparent problems. The bike was scratched up, and broke its ignition key off, but its owner and the rest of us were much more worried about Michael. The guys wanted to take him to a hospital to get him checked out, but he said he was fine.
Then after a few minutes, he suddenly sat down against a fence and asked me for water saying he needed water NOW. I carry a small bottle of safe drinking water in my purse, so I gave it to him and he gulped it all. He had gotten dizzy and was worried he might be going into shock (though it was probably just dehydration). It was only after then he realized his toe hurt. The water helped.
After about 20 minutes, he noticed his toe hurting a lot, and said yeah, maybe he should go to the hospital. Now, we live literally right next door to the new hospital the college just built. So we went home. I ran upstairs to put our stuff away, and Michael called me. Turns out the hospital is so new it's not really open yet, and they don't have an X-ray machine. So he and Jagat took off on Jagat's motorbike (again, no helmets). I couldn't go along, so I stayed in and called Seven Corners (the health insurance for Fulbright scholars). They said as long as we called them within two business days, it would be OK.
Medical care here is cheap. He had three fractures in his big toe. It cost Michael only a few hundred rupees (about six US dollars). That covers the X-rays, doctor consultation, bandages and meds. He was in and out in about 20 minutes, despite the hospital ER being crowded with people. His insurance has a $15 copay, so the cost is moot. It's likely my cell-phone call to the health-insurance company cost more than the treatment.
We took this as a sign that Michael should not try driving a motor scooter again. He also was sufficiently alarmed by riding on the back of a motorcycle to the hospital that he asked me not to do it. I'm just thankful this incident happened; the next time he might not have been so lucky. Traffic here is crazy and I would be worried sick any time he tried it.
So now he's thinking of getting a regular bicycle. I'm not sure what I think of that. At least we have another week or two before the bandages come off, to think of alternative ways of transportation.
