“What was next was an incredibly harrowing 55 hours,” recalled the actress.
Ashley Judd revealed she is recovering in an ICU trauma unit after shattering her leg during an African rainforest excursion.
In an Instagram Live with New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof on Friday, the 52-year-old actress detailed the horrific accident, saying she tripped over a fallen tree while on a nighttime trip to research bonobo apes in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
.@AshleyJudd has been in a bad accident in a remote part of the DR Congo, but she’s okay. She’s grateful to those who helped her, and focused on the health needs in the area. I’ll talk with her about what happened and those needs in a live Instagram chat tomorrow at 9am NY time. pic.twitter.com/wNrlAtYj10
— Nicholas Kristof (@NickKristof) February 11, 2021
@NickKristof
“What was next was an incredibly harrowing 55 hours,” she began. “It started with five hours of lying on the forest floor… biting my stick, howling like a wild animal. Knowing that this is the beginning of what’s going to take hours.”
“I’m going into shock,” Ashley recalled. “I’m passing out and all I can do is narrate and say, ‘The pain is really bad right now.’ My teeth are chattering. I’m in a cold sweat. I think I’m gonna vomit.”
After someone “set” her leg, she was then carried “an hour and a half in a hammock.”
“By my Congolese brothers, who were doing it barefoot, up and over hills, through the river,” she explained.
A motorcyclist then transported Ashley 6 hours away to a hut in the city of Jolu where she spent the night.
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“I had to physically hold the top part of my shattered tibia together,” she said of the motorcycle ride. “I was at the edge of my very edge.”
She was then flown to the capital of Kinshasa and waited another 24 hours before flying to a hospital in South Africa to receive an operation.
The “Double Jeopardy” star went on to say how she “deeply” loves Congo, but it is “not, unfortunately, equipped to deal with massive catastrophic injuries” like she had incurred.
“We’re talking about not just a lack of electricity, but a lack of a simple pill to kill the pain when you’ve shattered a leg in four places and have nerve damage.”
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Ashley also highlighted how she was extremely fortunate in the dire situation.
“The difference between a Congolese person and me is disaster insurance that allowed me 55 hours after my accident to get to an operating table in South Africa.”
“Of course, I will walk again, because I’m determined, and I believe in modern science, and I also believe in miracles, but there’s not really a time frame for when I’m gonna be bipedal,” she continued. “I have a journey ahead of me.”
“I’m in a lot of love. I’m in a lot of compassion and I’m in a lot of gratitude,” she added. “I thank everyone for their thoughts and their prayers and their support.”
