POPE LINKED TO INTERNATIONAL PAEDOPHILE INTERNET RING ....

..... or, LUCKY # 11


I used to love to ski. I haven't done much of it for a while and when I have it has been a bit of the sedentary kind. Years ago I used to travel regularly from Auckland to Ruapehu for a day's skiing and, if I stayed longer would stay in the ski lodge at Ohakune that I was a shareholder in or on the mountain in a ski club's lodge that I was a member of. It filled up a lot of my time in winter. When I did the day trips I used to leave auckland at about 4 in the morning, ski all day and drive back to auckland arriving home about 11PM. It was a good day out. I used to do this on my own usually and only sometimes would go with the Waikato University Ski Club members. I didn't go to Waikato University. I went to Victoria University. I didn't belong to the Vic ski club but did stay in their lodge a few times. You don't want to know this of course you probably just want me to get to the part where I broke my neck or wish I would.
My style  type of skiing (I'll leave out 'style' because I wasn't graceful) was to go up as far as I could on the chairlifts, climb and traverse as far as I could go to reach open, isolated areas and barrel down without having to worry about hitting anybody. I did this for years without mishap. The majesty of the mountain, any mountain was and is breathtaking. The peace and solitude tinged with an element of danger and brooding power inspires awe.

 One day, after having made a couple of good runs I had climbed up to Crater Lake, skiid and tramped down where I couldn't ski and got close to the ski fields. I started to make my way down to Turoa and managed to lose a ski pole. It skidded down a way and was caught on an edge. I took my skis off, planted them and the other pole in the snow and side-stepped down to get the pole. Just as I reached it the snow layer beneath my feet gave way and I went over the edge. It was steep. Very steep. Heights don't worry me and I have had a few drops in my time but this was scary. I was looking a long way down the mountain at what seemed to me a vertical drop. I went straight down, feet first knowing that it was not going to be good.

 I saw ground (snow and ice ) coming up at me rapidly and tried to do what I had learned with parachuting - flex and roll. I did this but on impact heard/felt a disturbing crack. I knew that I had done damage but wasn't sure what or how bad. Going down it hadn't registered with me that I was going to land on a kind of ledge/path that was an unofficial part of the ski run, the major part of which was still a good way down below. The fall before hitting this was about 30 foot which was a lot better than the couple of hundred further over the edge of the path to the valley below.

 I lay there a while, not stunned exactly but a bit breathless and embarrassed. I knew that I couldn't make my own way down, that my skis were up above me and that I would have to rely on someone to help me. I hate that as most men do. Hey! We never ask for directions or advice in hardware stores. We just do OK? About 5 minutes later two skiiers making their way down the narrow path I was lying on found me and went down the mountain to get the ski patrol. These guys, the ski patrol, are really good skiers and do what they do for love of the sport. They travel the world skiing and generally come from countries like Austria, Norway, Sweden, USA, France etc. Young, fit, good looking and tanned, if I were a young woman or Richard (of RBB) I would have fancied them.

They put me in a 'banana boat' a long plastic stretcher that one of them could tow behind him. One of them retrieved my skis. They took me to the field clinic and assessed my injury as a bad ankle fracture that needed hospital treatment. When they asked me if I had someone to take me to hospital (nearest one Raetihi about 20 minutes from Ohakune) I said sure. I don't know why I said sure perhaps it was that stupid male independence thing coming out again. I got help from the rescue team to the car with my skis. They left me to my own devices. If I had been a young attractive woman or even just attractive I bet that at least one of them would have stayed but there you go. I drove down the mountain ( a tricky exercise in winter conditions from Turoa to Ohakune especially when the car is a manual). A few minutes into the drive I was wishing I had any number of previous cars that were automatic. Trying to work brake, accelerator and clutch with one foot while the other foot is sending shock waves of pain up your body at every bump is not good. Going down a snow and ice covered road without having fitted the snow chains necessitates a great deal of brake and clutch work. What a stupid c##t! At Ohakune I looked at the map to Raetihi and was relieved that it wasn't far away and on the relative flat. When I got there I parked as close as possible to the front doors and hopped in. This was late afternoon on a Sunday and the staff weren't rushed off their feet being a country hospital but were about to do some staff changeovers. I bet they didn't want to see me. They were wonderfully courteous though and helped me to a cubicle and a bed to sit on. When they had a look at my foot there was a lot of 'tut-tutting' going on. They asked me how I had done it and I explained which was OK but when they asked how I had got to the hospital they were horrified to hear that I had driven. Irresponsible I know but this was the 80's ( 1987 to be precise).
They explained that the injury looked bad and needed the orthopaedic surgeon to look at it . They also explained that the orthopaedic surgeon would not be available until the next day. Naively I thought that they could just strap it up and I would drive off home to auckland. I had to go to work the next day didn't they know. They politely told me to have a couple of aspirins, a cup of tea and a good lie down. And, by the way, seeing that there was always a nice big roast for Sunday dinner (midday in rural New Zealand) there wasn't going to be any tea (evening meal in rural New Zealand). "Great" I thought having had no food since a Caesar salad the night before as I had driven down at 4 AM and skied all day.
I was helped to a bed in a tiny ward that had two other inmates.
One apparently had been there for a couple of years with an arm and a leg amputated due to a car accident, the other because he was recovering from an appendectomy operation. Oh, the versatility of country hospitals. I tried to settle down for the evening/night. I don't like being in hospitals. I had been in one for a week when I was young and it made me stir-crazy. as I grew older I realised that I have mild claustrophobia. This, combined with a natural shyness and maybe unnatural dislike of close association with strangers made the looming night and day stay in this hospital unpalatable. The next day (interminable) the orthopaedic surgeon arrived in the afternoon and after looking at my ankle said that the swelling as a result of my stupid actions made it impossible to do anything to it.

 A couple of days went past waiting for the swelling to subside before x-rays could be taken, the injury evaluated and measures taken to fix it. It was a spiral fracture, not a straight break so that was good but the surrounding muscles and ligaments were stressed. Dressing and plaster-casting  and various other procedures took to the following weekend. I was able to leave the hospital a week after I went in. I had a manual car outside (that someone had driven around the back to a secure parking space at no cost) and had a heavy, old-fashioned plaster - cast on my leg. How was I going to get back to Auckland? The hospital staff who had looked after me superbly during the week had a solution. One of them had a relative  who was going to Auckland on Monday. He cancelled his travel arrangements to drive me in my car here which he did getting me to my home. I arranged a taxi to take him to where he needed to go to.  On the way I had him stop at Ohakune at a flower shop and I bought the biggest bunch of flowers they had and sent them to the Raetahi hospital staff.

 The week I had there was eye-opening. The attention and care that the small staff showed to the patients was a model in customer service. The guy with the amputated limbs received as much love and consideration as he would from his family (if they had bothered to look after him). I was frankly gog-smacked. As a New Zealander I am sorry and ashamed that small hospital units like the Raetahi ones have been allowed to be disbanded. The community care and work ethic is something to be valued not evaluated in terms of inefficiency and waste. I feel proud to have experienced it at first hand when it was still alive and well.