Last month, we reported that the Hollywood star Ashley Judd had shattered her leg and suffered nerve damage in a terrifying ape-tracking accident in the Congo in Africa. Now, she is speaking out to thank her doctors, family, and friends for their support throughout this harrowing ordeal.
“I want to thank Dr Phil Kregor & @hughstonclinic & @todd_rubin_md for seven hours of intensive, brilliant, inspired surgical work on my bones and nerve,” Judd wrote on Instagram. “It took stamina, focus, and humility to consult with some experts around the country, whom I also deeply thank (especially SMc). Everyone at Skyline Hospital, thank you for the shelter. I loved the sweet spirit of the janitor who cleaned my room, my bright-spot-of-the-day-gal from nutrition, and always, my consummate and tender nurses.”
“Now, I am in the bosom of a stream of friends and family, too numerous to mention, who have caught me in their prodigious arms from this precipitous fall,” she added. “They do for me what I cannot do for myself – prepare meals, shampoo my hair, and they also offer the deep spiritual direction and consolation of trying to begin to craft an arc of meaning and purpose. They also offer and meet my need for quiet. I am lost and they are my shepherd’s staff.”
“To all who have gone before me and walk beside me with physical therapy, I had no idea. Thank you,” Judd continued. “I am only at beginning and the combination of drowning in trauma and addressing the physical body is a lot. Yet you have done it, and so will I. Haltingly, imperfectly, and under the brave eye of Truthseeker, my dear cousin’s @sagermosaics epic art work she says I inspired. (Could that possibly be true?). Thank you, all here and everywhere, for the goodwill, and may we ever be mindful of the needs of others.”
View this post on Instagram
Judd was trying to track a rare ape in Africa when she tripped over a tree stump and shattered her leg in four places. She then underwent 55 hours of agony as those with her tried to get her from a remote area of the Congo to somewhere where she could get medical treatment.
Judd was carried out of the forest for hours and placed on a motorcycle for a ride that lasted hours as well. She was then flown to South Africa, where she was given the medical treatment she needed before being flown back to the states, where she underwent an eight hour surgery that saved her leg.
“In an American hospital, I had to continue to wait for the tissue damage and swelling to reduce. Eventually I was qualified to have the 8-hour surgery to repair the bones, decompress the hemorrhaging nerve and pick the shards of bones out of the nerve. I am now recovering from surgery,” she said last month.
“I’m very thankful to all of the experts, including that expert pictured, my Pop, who is rubbing my foot to remind my foot while it still cannot move that it is connected to my body,” Ashley added. “I am up and around already. Thank you for your care and kind words. Let us always remember those without insurance. Let us remember those who do have choices. Let us remember those who are lonely and afraid.”
View this post on Instagram
COMMENTS POLICY: We have no tolerance for messages of violence, racism, vulgarity, obscenity or other such discourteous behavior. Thank you for contributing to a respectful and useful online dialogue.