‘An incredibly harrowing 55 hours.’ Ashley Judd in ICU after serious accident in rainforest
Actress and University of Kentucky alum Ashley Judd is recovering in an intensive care unit in South Africa after suffering what she called “massive catastrophic injuries” to her leg in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Judd said in an Instagram post that she nearly lost her leg and wants to use the incident to highlight “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.”
She told New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof that her “life partner” has a research camp in the Congo studying endangered great apes called bonobos, and they spend a month to six weeks at the camp twice a year. Yahoo Entertainment reported that Judd had been at the Kokolopori Bonobo Research Project camp, which is run by Martin Surbeck.
“I am accustomed to being there. I am a woman of the wilderness, as you know. Accidents do happen,” she said in the Instagram post.
Judd told Kristof she was walking in the forest with trackers very early in the morning when she tripped over a log, breaking her leg in four places.
She said she spent “an incredibly harrowing 55 hours” before she arrived at the hospital.
Judd said in the video interview with Kristof that was posted on Instagram Friday that her right foot is “lame.”
“It’s going to take some time for that nerve to heal,” she said. “There’s going to be intensive physical therapy.”
“I have a journey ahead of me,” she said.
Judd said she spent five hours lying on the forest floor “biting my stick, howling like a wild animal” before she was carried out of the forest in a hammock.
Then came a six-hour ride on a motorbike.
“I had to physically hold the top part of my shattered tibia together,” she said, while a man sat behind her holding her up.
“I was in an extraordinary amount of emotional and physical and spiritual pain,” she told Kristof.
She said she stayed overnight in a hut before a plane transported her to South Africa, where better medical care was available.
She expressed gratitude for the people who helped her during the ordeal.
“They couldn’t offer me ibuprofen, but they offered me a depth of understanding, because they know what this suffering is like,” she said in the interview.
Judd noted that many people who live in the DRC would have lost their leg or their life in a similar situation, because they would not have been able to afford to pay for transportation to a treatment facility.
“I was in my privilege,” she told Kristof.
Judd, who is known for her activism and humanitarian work, said she wanted to use the incident as an opportunity to focus attention on the needs of the region, including women who give birth at home without the help of a skilled birth attendant.
In the interview with Kristof, she asked people to consider donating to the Friends of UNFPA, which provides support to the United Nations Population Fund. Judd is a goodwill ambassador for the organization.
This story was originally published February 12, 2021 at 10:29 PM.
