Ashley Judd Nearly Loses Leg After Injury in the Congo, Took 55 Hours to Get to Hospital
Ashley Judd ‘had no pulse’ in her shattered leg after 55-hour rescue in the Congo. Judd needed a blood transfusion and was airlifted to South Africa. The “grueling 55-hour” rescue Ashley Judd experienced after shattering her leg was just the start of her lengthy recovery process.
Judd was injured in the jungle of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where she had tripped over a fallen tree during a visit to see the endangered bonobos monkeys. Judd was then flown to Sunninghill Hospital in Johannesburg, South Africa for surgery.
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“I arrived to them from DRC in terrible shape and my leg had no pulse,” Judd wrote to her Instagram. “I desperately needed a blood transfusion. Their sisters (nurses) are exemplary, technically top notch, and they cared for the trauma in my body as well as my soul with equal proficiency.”
Judd said the staff had to make “split second decisions upon my arrival” to figure out how to care for her significant injury. Her surgeon, Dr. Eugene Greeff, “was super at stabilizing my leg with the external fixator until the massive soft tissue damage and swelling went down so that I could have the Big Operation.”
“What he did was significant and I am forever in his debt.”
Once in an American hospital, Judd said, “I had to continue to wait for the tissue damage and swelling to reduce. Eventually I was qualified to have the 8-hour surgery to repair the bones, decompress the hemorrhaging nerve and pick the shards of bones out of the nerve. I am now recovering from surgery.”
Judd, who said she is “now up and around,” thanked everyone who helped her through this part of her journey — from the “exemplary” nurses in Johannesburg, to Greeff, to the hospital management and to her father.
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“He has been my rock, companion, resource, helped me listen to so many doctors, critical support system, and kind, loving presence as I have wept and wept,” she said of her dad, who is in one of the pictures she shared. “I’m very thankful to all of the experts, including that expert pictured, my Pop, who is rubbing my foot to remind my foot while it still cannot move that it is connected to my body.”
“Let us always remember those without insurance,” Judd said. “Let us remember those who do not have choices. Let us remember those who are lonely and afraid.”