Thank heavens for insurance!

Ok, so we were all set. Car hired. Us and 3 like minded Europeans go hiking-sight seeing for the day.

All started well when we pick up a great sized hire car to accommodate us all, many thanks to Candice at National Car Rentals Jasper for the good banter and an understanding of all things traveller minded. We headed off east to Pocahontas, a place we nearly stayed at prior to booking the hostel. Lucky we didn't as though this collection of log cabins looked lovely it was easily 40kms out of town. We stopped at various great looking spots on route as the flowing Alabaster River opened up into many frozen lakes. Jasper Lake being the lake with the wow factor.

On reaching Pocahontas we spotted a small trail. Pocahontas was previously a mining area. We found a sign heading to Pocahontas Falls so with that we were off. Still a bit of snow and ice on the ground but mainly mud. On reaching the top, great lookout point which gave grand views over the Rockies within Jasper National Park, no falls could be found. So the next best thing whilst at this point was to stop for coffee.

With a brief chat with a local hiker and coffees done it was off back down to the car, a ten minute walk, max, around 100 metres in gradient. That's when the day took a terrible turn. Fe was leading the pack when suddenly she picked up speed, kind of like the sort of downhill running you used to do as a child. You know, too fast whooping and hollering with our arms going all over the place. At first it just seemed a bit of fun then she disappeared to the right down a steeper section she went out of sight. At this point things didn't seem funny anymore. I then dropped the backpack and camera and quickly chased after her, not before falling over myself. I reach Fe as she was lying in a ball not looking too good. Once close up she rolled over and it was quite apparent that she had hit her head on something pretty hard. There was a LOT of blood! And it sounds obvious, but it was real red blood too. A red deep red blood. As the others caught up it was at this point that Lal, from Germany, turned out to be a doctor and Niels and Eva, from Denmark, were student doctors! Eva went straight into action applying pressure to Fe's head to try and stop the bleeding. Niels and Lal went off to raise the alarm with the park ranger. Me, I just tried to keep Fe focused whilst trying not to keel over myself. Let's just say I had two large moments that could have gone either way. Lucky for me I managed to hold it together but I'm not too sure I would have if I was doing Eva's job!

Although she didn't lose consciousness she was shaking badly thus managed to get blood everywhere. The lads returned with the park ranger, John. Nice guy, who happened to be wearing a super pair of cuban-styled heeled hiking boots that looked like they'd seen some rescue action. In moments John had an ambulance called and rescue helicopter on it's way as he'd deemed the location where we were now at too slippy for him to instruct any others to tread or for us to get Fe safely down to the waiting ambulance.

Before we knew it mountain rescue, Colin & Patsy, plus one other who's name I forget but what we do know is that he definitely wasn't the navigator of the team as he'd been wandering around for quite a while trying to find us! All had climbed the hill with all their kit, tales of slipping as they reached as. As the sleet started to fall, not great timing, they assessed Fe via the normal procedures and fitted her with a neck brace and gave her oxygen just in case. At this point things looked straight out of Michael Burke's 999 show. Fe had been led on the wet ground for over an hour and was getting pretty cold. She was strapped to a state of the art vacuum rescue board and on the count of thee the eight of us grabbed a handle and carried her up, slipping and sliding, to the waiting helicopter that had just landed only a few feet above from our earlier coffee stop just over a hour before.

She wad swiftly locked and loaded into the helicopter, pretty vocal at this point as we've chosen not to do various single engine helicopter rides in the past. Although travelling the world she still doesn't enjoy aircraft of any description, especially ones with single engines. Me on the other hand I was disappointed that mountain rescue Colin had bagged the only other spare seat, so I not only had to trek back down on a very slippy slope, I'd also missed out on a ride in a Magnum PI styled mode of transport. Ranger John and I simply became ground-crew and head of photography. So as we struggled to get off the hill Fe was flown effortlessly down to the carpark were waiting ambulance paramedics Dan & Tim took over.

Dan's first question to Fe was to assess if she knew what day it was. Mmmm not a good start. For some time now both of us haven't had a clue what day it was. Not sure she replied correctly. Not a good start to the 'are you still with us' questions. From here I think they moved onto more straight forward questions! It was a 30km ride to Hinton A&E Hospital. Me up front with Tim who had totally assured me Fe was fine and although we were moving pretty swiftly there was no need for the bells and whistles - blues and twos - or whoop whoops as paramedic Ian back home calls them. At the back though Fe was in a huge amount of discomfort and all the safety equipment wasn't helping too much either. She was one unhappy bunny. On looking back from the cab though the rear space of the rig would be perfect for a campervan base.

On arrival at A&E, still no bells and whistles - blues and twos, so my panic had now eased a little, she was wheeled off into an examination room whilst I gave the reception desk some vital statistics. On asking Fe's address I of course responded UK, which was greeted with a chorus of groans, oh the paperwork they all cried, all done through half-smiles though. I had a quick check in my backpack and unbelievably had our insurance documents (at least I had those, unlike the first aid kit was all dry and untouched back at the hostel!). Fe, now shaking uncontrollably, had to endure a series of x-rays and lots of prodding whilst I hunted for a strong cuppa, that was never found or offered. The mood lifted though as would you believe the radiographer was a "Feona". The exact spelling with an 'e' not a 'i'. Ohh had we laughed.

Eventually the neck brace was removed and a proper examination, by James a 3rd year medical student, of her head could start. He struggled with the amount of congealed curly hair hampering him assess the situation and originally thought he glimpsed a sight of her scalp. At this point I popped out outside just to see if the the Rockies were still surrounding us and to get some vital fresh-air into the lungs and brain area. A gentle shower was suggested to remove some of the blood but actually helped little as we weren't allowed to get the spray of water on the wound in case it provoked more bleeding, Fe could hardly stand up at this point as the nausea had now kicked in.

Eventually Dr Sorenson dug deep and felt that the wound could be glued and Fe was saved from head shaving and the dreaded human stapler! Which at one point one of the new shift nurses seemed way too keen to use! Again as the conversion picked up I popped out again to check on those Rockie Mountains as I'd figured they didn't need two Brits conking out on beds getting mud everywhere, which by now at this point we seemed to have done pretty well.

With the high-tech super glue now on the wound and a cautionary tetanus jab given Fe, very wobbly legged, headed out of the hospital with an epic headache and a hairdo to match. Even Vidal Sassoon would struggle with this one. Amazingly we were still messing around. I felt the worst was over, as with a deep breath I checked in again on the view of the scenic Rockie mounts.

Our fellow Europeans had been so great! Again we felt like a bad situation had been eased. And hey if you're gunna have an accident have it with three medics in tow. Not only were they great medics, they'd even bought the patient flowers (albeit plastic) and a get well soon card. We felt lucky to be all laughing in the grounds of a hospital. It was time we left.

Fe being Fe she was adamant she didn't want to spoil everyones day, so with a hairdo like no other it was down with a few pain killers from Lal, favorite hat placed on the bonce, so as not to scare the locals, and we were back on the road continuing our day trip as it doesn't get dark till gone 9pm. Even with the 5 hour 'situation' we still managed to spot a roaming wolf, antlered elk. possibly moose, but doubtful, (our fav). Big horned sheep, deer and frolicking eagles high above Medicine lake (our seconded fav) all mixed in with some absolutely wonderful scenery. But where are those bears (not even the mass of blood Fe left on the mountain or now the stained fleece, jacket, hat, gloves, camera-bag, oh yes, camera bag looks like it's been through a massacre, didn't even tempt out those bears). Where are those bears?