Ashley Judd shares details of leg injury, thanks Congo locals for ‘saving’ her life
Actor-activist Ashley Judd, who is recovering at a South African trauma unit after suffering a shattered leg in a Congolese jungle, has expressed gratitude towards the locals who helped her through the difficult time.
Last week, Judd, who is a frequent visitor to Congo, revealed in an Instagram Live with The New York Times that she tripped over a fallen tree, shattering her leg and was currently in Intensive Care Unit (ICU).
The Emmy-nominated actor took to Instagram on Tuesday to share a series of photos chronicling the ”55 hour”-long harrowing experience.
”Without my Congolese brothers and sisters, my internal bleeding would have likely killed me, and I would have lost my leg. I wake up weeping in gratitude, deeply moved by each person who contributed something life giving and spirit salving during my grueling 55 hour odyssey,” she began the post.
Judd, 52, said as she lay in agony on the forest floor, a man named Dieumerci ”stretched out his leg and put it under my grossly misshapen left leg to try to keep it still. It was broken in four places and had nerve damage. Dieumerci (‘Thanks be to God’) remained seated, without fidgeting or flinching, for 5 hours on the rain forest floor.” The ”Divergent” star also recounted faded in and out of consciousness as she went into shock from the excruciating pain.
After searching for five hours, another local man named Papa Jean gave her a stick to bite on, she said.
”He told me what he had to do. I bit a stick. I held onto Maud. And Papa Jean, with certainty began to manipulate and adjust my broken bones back into something like a position I could be transported in, while I screamed and writhed. How he did that so methodically while I was like an animal is beyond me. He saved me.” A group of six men then improvised a hammock and spent three hours carefully carrying Judd through the forest to the nearest transportation.
Then a friend named Maradona volunteered to ride with the actor for six hours on a motorbike, keeping her from falling off and holding her shattered foot in place.
”Didier drove the motorbike. I sat facing backwards, his back my backrest. When I would begin to slump, to pass out, he would call to me to re-set my position to lean on him. Maradona rode on the very back of the motorbike, I faced him. ”He held my broken leg under the heel and I held the shattered top part together with my two hands. Together we did this for 6 hours on an irregular, rutted and pocked dirt road that has gullies for rain run off during the rainy season. Maradona was the only person to come forward to volunteer for this task.” The actor spent the night of accident in a hut in the city of Jolu, before being flown to the capital of Kinshasa for a 24 hours stay.
Previously, Judd said she decided to share her experience after the accident to spread the word about ”what it means to be Congolese in extreme poverty with no access to health care, any medication for pain, any type of service, or choices”.
