As most of you are aware by now, I’m involved with a running group here in Hangzhou called the Hash House Harriers. So it was that I came to be out in the hills behind Lingyin Temple on my own on Sunday setting a trail that the rest of the group would be following a couple of hours later. I’d set off from the temple and snaked through the village setting a few checks and false trails and then set off up this amazing gully. Twenty minutes or so up the gully it was getting more steep and rocky so I decided to take the trail up a steep clamber through the trees on to the ridge where there would be a proper path. It looked like about 30 – 40 vertical metres to the ridge, pretty steep but doable. Great hash country.
I marked a turn in the trail and set off clambering, pulling myself up on the trees. After about 5 minutes I stopped for 30 seconds or so to catch my breath. I was standing some small branches lying horizontally across my route, I remember thinking that they felt like the might give under my weight and started to move off, but I couldn’t get my foot out, it was starting to feel trapped. I looked down and discovered that my foot was gripped in a heavy, metal boar trap. There had been no sudden pain of impact, I can only assume it closed slowly round my foot. It was now starting to hurt, gripping me very tightly. I turned round to face back down the hill and sat down and started trying to prise the thing off my foot. It very quickly became apparent that it was going no where. As my foot was holding it open by about 10cm I was able to get my hands in but pulling it apart with maximum force was moving it at best a millimetre or two, not even enough to release the pressure.
Time to asses the situation. It was painful but not unbearably so at this point, I didn’t appear to be bleeding and there was no way I was getting it off on my own. Even the smallest movements of my foot amplified the pain significantly. I wasn’t going to attempt descending on my own unless I absolutely had to. I needed help. I had an additional layer of clothing for my upper body, no food but about 750millilitres of water and most importantly mobile reception.
I called CK, who would be either on his way or about to be. I couldn’t get through, so I decided to take a photo of the thing with my phone camera…
… After snapping a couple of shots I tried CK again and was able to get through and explained roughly where I was, that it was painful but not immediately life threatening but that I wouldn’t be able to get it off without assistance. CK immediately started mobilising the troops. A bunch of hashers were already on route, HP called and asked me what I needed and I spoke to LH too. And then I sat there on the hillside, struggling to hold myself in a position that kept the weight off my foot and thinking. I thought a lot about how to get it off my foot, about the potential damage being done to my foot. I thought about what it would mean to the days plans (F1) and later plans (Hangzhou Marathon). I thought about the hash run that now wouldn’t happen. I think to a large extent the severity of the situation hadn’t hit me at this point. I was annoyed that I couldn’t get it off myself and believed, quite wrongly, that the first person to arrive would be able to quickly release me.
It was almost exactly an hour after it happened when the first people arrived on the scene HP, MG and Mickey. Again efforts were made to remove the trap but aside from inflicting more pain not a great deal was achieved. HP and Mickey made a whole bunch of phones calls to the police and others to mobilise the rescue mission. As the second hour progressed the pain became more difficult to take, it would come in waves at times sufficiently excruciating that I had to scream just to find some kind of release. The jaws of the trap had crude teeth and I was sure that I could feel at least one of them moving round inside my foot whenever the trap was moved. Having initially not suspect a puncture wound and blood I was now convinced that the hot, damp feeling in my shoe was blood.
I’m not really clear on exactly what was going on at the bottom of the hill. MG had gone back down to meet people and show them the way back up. CK, AM, LH, were in the police station for quite some time while calls were made and decisions deliberated, tools sought. Mickey and HP did avaliant job of trying to keep my spirits up but it was a frustrating time. HP made me put my fleece on (smart) and tried to get me to eat (which I couldn’t) and to drink water (also smart).
After about two hours we started to hear voices coming up the trail and quite soon on the hillside we had me, HP, Mickey, MG, CK, AM, LH, a police man (or two) and a couple of other people whose day job i’m not sure about. CK had a large piece of (what looked like) drift wood and immediately started trying to lever the thing off. Mickey who had been studying over the course of the previous hour had the plan though. AM had a brought a rock which was used to create a solid surface, I was forced to stand up and hug a tree. CK had borrowed a couple of hand tools from a lady in the village and between the brute force of half a dozen people pulling and the leverage of the hand tool they were able to move the jaws of the thing far enough apart that they could undo my shoe laces and slide my foot. The relief.
We took off my sock and no one was more stunned than me that it had failed to puncture my skin. There wasn’t even at this point a great deal of bruising to see. The decent involved going back down the steep slope I had clambered up about 20 vertical metres. AM was quick to volunteer to carry me but I felt I’d could manage to come down slowly. The initial decent wasn’t too bad, I think I still had quite a lot ofadrenalin in me at this point. The policeman who had been instrumental in getting the thing off my foot tried to help me on the way down but I just really wanted to be left alone, with my hands free, to struggle down.
We emerged into the gully and there was another half a dozen people there, including a man (we assume a doctor) in a white coat who examined my foot. We agreed that I didn’t need to go to hospital and began the walk back down the gully. As we neared the bottom we spotted a TV crew (later a second one would arrive). The situation at the bottom with the TV crews was a bit chaotic. Relief had set in with me and when they tried to interview me in Chinese I couldn’t string a coherent sentence together. AM did a grand job of telling them an exciting story of Englishman in boar trap that bore (no pun intended) little resemblance to what had happened to me. Photos were taken, close-ups of the trap, pictures of each person with the trap. LH said it was the best Sunday ever.
One thing that was unfortunate about the chaos with the TV cameras at the bottom was that a lot of people who’d helped left before I had a chance to say thanks. Particularly the policeman who’d come all the way up to where I was and had been very involved in getting the trap off. The doctor. The lady who’d lent the hand tools which the man who new an alarming amount boar traps appears to have stolen and probably a bunch of other people besides. The good thing about the chaos was that somehow the boar trap had been left behind so I took it. I figured I’d earned it (it’s now in Maya bar as a hash trophy if you want to see it).
We made our way slowly back to the village and paid a man in ‘bread car’ to drive us back to Maya. Discussing the whys, wherefores and whatifs in the bar made me realise how lucky I was. We just moved the run time forward an hour so we had more light than we would have done a week ago. While painful like nothing I’ve ever experienced the damage done was minimal and could very easily have been much worse, I had a phone on me and was able to get reception. Due to the fact we were setting a hash there was a flour and chalk trail to my location (albeit with false trails and checks in it).
I am incredibly grateful to everyone who helped me, those who I have thanked, those who I haven’t yet and those who I will not be able to. To so suddenly find yourself in this kind of situation and unable to do much to help yourself is a shock but from the very beginning I new that there were a group of people who were doing everything they could to get me out of there.
Leave a Reply