The Crash

From Great North Road

By Maurice Timlin.

Around 1981-82 my wife went home to the UK for a short holiday with her mother. The children were all away at schools in the UK or Zimbabwe thus leaving me to look after myself only, with no other responsibilities. Why is it therefore, that given a bit of free slack away from the guiding influences of the spouse, we get ourselves into trouble?

On finishing work around 17-30hrs I would drive straight over to the Chibuluma Bowling Club rather than to an empty house so that I could get in a quick game of bowls before adjourning to the bar for a few beers. The house was well protected by two dogs, Bonzer and Kariba, a night security guard, Security lights all round, an alarm system connected to all burglar bars and a Siren which had started life on one of the Copper mines. There was therefore no reason to rush home in fear of the house being burgled.

For some reason we enjoyed a brief period when the beers were just about the best I had tasted for some time and were very drinkable with no floaters or excessive acid (which I am sure contributed to my Hiatus Hernia which developed in Zambia and for which, 30 years later, I still require daily medication to alleviate the feeling of Chronic Indigestion), iron taste or blown bottles. On such rare occasions it was regarded as permissible to pour as many bottles down the throat as the body would allow, bearing in mind that such occasions were very rare at that time.

I believe it was a Sunday as the club was ticking like a clock, with many people slaking their thirst and enjoying the atmosphere that a few bevies can create. I was in one of those groups of about six people which made it easy to remember who was due to buy the next round and that the rounds were not excessively expensive due to the lower number of people in the group. (I am not really tight-fisted, just practical.) However, the only problem with any group was the competition to show that you were not slow in coming forward when it was your round. Consequently, as the evening progressed, the rounds became more and more frequent until the drinkers were overtaken by the speed at which drinks were being bought and drunk.

Towards the end of the evening I can only estimate that I had consumed around a dozen bottles of Mosi and was somewhere near my maximum limit for capacity without needing to answer the porcelain telephone. With regards to being capable of driving, I knew that I was well over the limit if such a limit did exist in Zambia at that time but I had this urge to sleep in my own bed to be ready for work the next morning. I therefore decided to drive back to Kitwe with caution knowing there would be no road blocks or breathalysers on the way home and I only had to remember the unguarded railway crossing which had claimed a few lives in the past. I therefore turned down several offers of a bed for the night in Kalalushi and set to leave the club. As I was leaving the club one couple who were living in Kitwe invited me back for a Nightcap at their place which I gladly accepted but as I went towards my car, a woman who had arrived by bicycle earlier and was now in a 'tired and distressed state' asked if I could follow her to her Kalulushi home as she rode her bike, to ensure that she arrived safely. I thought that the best option was to place the bike in the trunk and give her a lift home in the car.

Having completed this errand of mercy I now remembered the Nightcap and realised that after being delayed, the friends may have decided that I wasn't coming and had gone to bed. I therefore drove towards Kitwe in undue haste. Those of you who know this road will remember that between Kitwe and Kalulushi it is essentially a straight road for 15 kilometres with one set of bends near the Mindola Sailing and Boating Club turn-off. The car I was driving was a brand new Volkswagen Golf Diesel which I was given as a Company vehicle a few days before and had barely more than the delivery mileage from Dar as Salaam on the clock. Furthermore, the Company had ordered this vehicle more than a year earlier but had to wait due to lack of foreign exchange. There were no seat belts fitted and the speedometer was registering in miles per hour rather than kilometres per hour, a fact that was to have significant consequences over the next 10 minutes.

Leaving Kalulushi up Central Avenue I decided in my befuddled state not to exceed 80kph forgetting that the odometer was showing mph. I was therefore driving at nearly twice the speed I thought I was doing. At the same time I had this terrible urge to close my eyes and sleep even though I knew I was driving and this is exactly what I did. Somehow or other, the car maintained a straight course with me in a comatose state until it reached the aforesaid bend when it ran off the tar onto the laterite or dirt shoulder. This woke me from my sleep very quickly and in trying to rectify the situation I over-steered the car back onto the tar and off again on the other side of the bend. At this point I remember the car hitting something that was very unyielding, before the lights went out, mine as well as the car.

When I came round from my comatose state some while later, (my estimate is between 60-90 minutes) my mind was telling me that I had left the club, climbed into the car and fallen asleep in the car park as I was lying across the front seats with my head and shoulders on the driving seat and my legs resting in the foot-well of the passenger seat. The car appeared to be in an upright position. I then wondered why the inside of the roof was about 6 inches above my face and who had stolen my windscreen. Reality dawned on me when the pain emanating from various parts of the body started to take effect. A self-preservation mode kicked in causing me to sober up almost immediately to consider my next course of action. I had no idea how long I had been unconscious as my watch had been torn from my wrist during the accident and could have been anywhere in the vicinity of the crash. This watch was purchased in Tokyo in 1976 and was fairly unique in its design and function and had great sentimental value. I decided that I would first try to determine which of my major bones had been broken by getting out of the car and standing against it for support. This was easier said than done as the door was jammed and distorted leaving me no choice than to exit through the driver's window which from memory was now minus glass. Standing there in the dark I concluded that my arms and legs were not broken as I had used all four limbs to extricate myself from the car and would therefore be capable of walking or crawling back to the road once I could determine where it was.

I therefore decided to remain by the car until I could see or hear a passing vehicle which would tell me how far it was to the road. Had I chose to wander off looking for the road in the dark I could have ended up moving deeper into the bush and got into all sorts of further trouble.

The Crash.

After about 15 minutes I could hear a vehicle approaching in the distance before seeing its lights passing on the road about 75-100metres away. There was no possibility of reaching the road to stop this vehicle but at least I now knew where the road was and decided that I would crawl through the bush on hands and knees to stop the next vehicle that passed. About 10 minutes later I could see the headlights of an approaching vehicle and stood in the middle of the road waving for it to stop. I have often thought about this moment over the years, asking myself the question that had the roles been reversed and I was the driver approaching a seemingly drunken African staggering in the middle of the road, would I have played the Good Samaritan and stopped to help him. As it happens, the vehicle which I think was a Mine vanette with two Africans inside came to a halt. I explained what had happened and asked them to take me to the nearest hospital hoping that it would be the Mine Hospital at Kalulushi where I would expect to be well looked after (even though I was not a Mine employee) rather than the Kitwe General Hospital where I felt that my chances of recovery would be greatly diminished. They assisted me into the vanette, after which I passed out again only to awake in a wheelchair as I was being pushed into the Casualty Department of Kitwe General Hospital. I then passed out again as my self-preservation mode ended knowing that Kitwe General Hospital would be, for the foreseeable future, responsible for my preservation.

My next bout of consciousness occurred when I could feel something tugging at my forehead. Opening my one good eye I observed an Indian Doctor with a needle and suture in the act of closing up a split in my scalp with the dexterity of a fine seamstress on bonus. This lapsing in and out of consciousness occurred several times including one time when I tried to tell the Doctor that I felt sick and would he kindly pass me a stainless steel sputum bowl for the said purpose. Unfortunately the good Doctor did not understand my request as half my teeth were lying in the bush and he therefore took the full force of 12 bottles of Mosi determined to leave my digestive system at high velocity. I then felt it to be more expedient to lapse back into a comatose state to absolve myself from any responsibility for the involuntary discharge from my person.

The next time I came round I was being lifted into a bed which felt strangely warm and I could sense that my favoured, comfortable and expensive pair of Hush Puppy shoes were not on my feet. I remember looking over the edge of the bed to see if my shoes were underneath, which they were, but also saw the inquisitive gaze of an African who, it appears, was rudely awoken and lifted from the bed that I now enjoyed. The expression on his face said "Am I in the middle of some weird dream or has this Muzungu taken my bed?"

I then drifted off into a painful sleep until about 4 o'clock in the morning when two police constables appeared at the side of my bed asking if they could have a statement from me about the accident as they were considering a prosecution for dangerous driving on my part. They had been alerted by my two rescuers and had visited the scene of the accident to investigate. They explained that there was visual evidence at the scene to show that on leaving the road the car had stuck a rock protruding about three feet above ground with such force that the car had become airborne, clearing the treetops for 50 feet and then rotating end to end for another 150 feet before landing upright and nose-first into a tree. They also explained that the car's trajectory had managed to avoid the many termite mounds in that particular area which would have been like hitting concrete pillars and ending in certain death. I politely refrained from providing such a statement as I was in great pain and that I would prefer to do so in the presence of my lawyer at some future date when I had fully recovered, but would they mind notifying my boss about the accident and my being in hospital.

Around lunch-time and in my drowsy state I became aware of movement around my bed. Thinking the someone may be stealing my Precious Hush Puppy Shoes I opened my eyes to see nearly all of my African workforce gathered at the foot of the bed as though I was dying and they were waiting to catch my last breath. On hearing about my accident they had downed tools, commandeered several vanettes and drove to the crash site to retrieve my car. The foreman had found my beloved watch which he handed over while the rest of the lads produced copious amounts of buns, bananas and fantas to make me strong again. I would like to think that the fact that I used to determine their monthly bonus which often doubled their salary had no bearing on their generosity.

Seriously though, I felt humbled that these workers who only took home around 200-300 Kwacha a month were prepared to feed me in Hospital which aptly demonstrated the level of loyalty you could expect if you treated people with respect. Later on in the afternoon my German boss visited and commented in what I thought was broken English, "When I see the state of the car as it was removed from the bush and when I see the state of you lying there, I don't think you have been hurt enough". I wondered if he meant that I was lucky to be alive bearing in mind that the car was a virtual write-off or did he mean that I had not been punished enough for crashing his lovely German car so soon after delivery for reasons of excess alcohol in the system. We never ever finished that discussion as to what he meant. It being a question of 'don't go there'. I then requested a transfer to the Mine hospital At Kalulushi, explaining that I had a greater chance of survival due to better medical care and no risk of starvation, which was more than a probability in Kitwe General Hospital where apparently the only food is provided by your relatives, hence the buns and bananas.

In late afternoon I was transferred by ambulance to the Company Clinic in Kitwe where I was x-rayed so many times I felt guilty that I had probably exhausted a month's supply of film. It turned out that I was spared any broken limbs but suffered from bruised lungs, broken ribs and extensive lacerations to the head, face, arms and legs. I was also black with soot from where I had clambered through the bush that had recently been burnt under control for agricultural purposes. Thus I was delivered to the Mine Hospital for further treatment in my recovery and having the appearance of a chimney sweep.

On arriving at the Chibuluma Mine Hospital in Kalulushi I was put into a ward with about 8 beds, of which only 2 were occupied, mine and an adjacent bed on the opposite side of the room which was occupied by a guy called Tossie Bekker who had fractured his kneecap in a rugby incident when his knee came into contact with another player's head. As a consequence his leg was in plaster from toe to hip and was supported by a winching device fix to the ceiling so that his plastered leg was stretched almost vertically like an inverted ballet dancer.

The staff nurse was Avril Lovelady who ran a tight ship and took no prisoners. I had previously felt the sharp edge of Avril's tongue when I first joined the Chibuluma Bowling Club and was asked at short notice to leave the bar where I was very comfortable with my beer, to act as a Marker in a game of Singles which she was playing for a club competition. Being relatively new to the club and to the game of Bowls I was somewhat hesitant due to my lack of experience. In fact it was possibly the first game ever that I would act as a Marker. Without getting too involved in the rules of the game, it would be sufficient to say that the Marker, who stands at the head where the bowls come to rest, can be asked by either player during the course of play if they are holding the shot (i.e. is their bowl nearer to the jack the their opponents bowl). A skilled Marker would have the confidence of declaring which was shot wood unless the difference in distance between each competitor's nearest bowl and the jack was so small it could not be accurately determined by eye until the end was finished and a measuring tape was employed. Under such circumstances the Marker would confirm that a measure would be necessary to determine which competitor was holding the shot at that stage of the game. In other words, "It's anybody's guess until the End (that particular part of the game) is finished".

Unfortunately, due to imperfect vision (lazy eye) and the effects of several beers, I wrongly advised Avril that she was holding shot when in fact the measure went the other way and she lost that particular end. She roasted me alive there and then on the bowling green as though it was the final at Wimbledon and the game depended on my call. Now I am lying in a bed in her ward and at her mercy as she would probably remember me for this incident and would give me a hard time. In reality the bowling incident was never mentioned during my stay in Hospital and Avril merely bullied me into getting better. (I subsequently qualified as Umpire no 144 of the Zambian Bowling Association).

During my week in Hospital there were several incidents I can remember vividly. The first was when I was dozing, or lying in a state of semi-consciousness, which I seemed to do for most of my stay. I was woken abruptly by a loud scream from Tossie Bekker. Looking over towards his bed I could see him pirouetting upside down from his winch like a whirling Dervish. I shouted over to him asking what was wrong. Apparently, he was dreaming that his leg was caught in a gate and he was trying to free himself, hence the kerfuffle. On another occasion I awoke to the sound of banging and saw two ward orderlies fixing up a mechanical hoisting contraption above Tossie's bed so that he could pull himself up into a sitting position whenever he wanted, although with his plastered leg pointing almost vertically towards the ceiling I thought that he would be trying to achieve the impossible.

However, for me there were no such restraints and I saw the benefits of having a similar contraption fitted above my bed as I was unable to sit up under my own steam due to the pain of several broken ribs and bruised lungs. I therefore requested that a similar device be fitted to my bed when they had finished with Tossie. They were halfway through the installation on my bed when in comes Avril enquiring about what they were doing. When it was explained that they were erecting a hoist so that I could raise myself into a sitting position she said that such devices were only provided to seriously ill patients and that I did not fall into this category so I could not have one. Exit the two ward orderlies and me left feeling like a malingerer.

Towards the end of a week in hospital Staff Nurse Avril decided that I needed to have a bowel movement as her records showed that I had not one since admittance. She therefore threatened that if I did not have a bowel movement by the end of her shift she would arrange for a suppository to be applied in the rectum to achieve this purpose. Later that evening I was awoken from another dozing session by the sound of rustling by the bed. Cautiously opening one eye I observed that the rustling was caused by a very large African nurse pulling on a transparent plastic glove which reached up to her elbow and appeared to be holding a suppository the size of a large walnut. I quickly put 2 and 2 together and requested a wheelchair to visit the bathroom. There was no way that I was accepting a suppository of this size from a nurse with elbow length gloves.

I was discharged from the Mine Hospital after a week by the resident Surgeon Mr Buchanan and spent another week off work to allow the cuts and abrasions to start healing, but in actual fact it took almost a year to fully recover. It appears that my bowling woods which were resting on the back seat did most of the damage by tearing themselves from their leather carrying case and ricocheted around the inside of the car like loose cannon balls striking any object in their path, which included my head. I eventually received a new car from the Company which I drove thereafter with due diligence and caution. The crashed car (see photos) was eventually sold as an insurance write-off for 3500 kwacha which seemed to me to be a lot more than it was worth. Once my wife returned from her holiday my beer intake was strictly monitored and having been blessed once with good luck I was not likely to take such chances again.

The police continued to pursue me for a statement with the intention of charging me with dangerous driving. They even asked if I could provide them with transport so that they could examine the crashed car which was sitting at our Company's premises in the furtherance of their investigations, which I refused. They seemed blind to the fact that I was not going to place a noose round my own neck but eventually they gave up and left me alone. The foreman received a reward for retrieving my watch I still have to this day and still keeps excellent time. The only problem is that it costs 150pds for a standard service even though it only cost 35pds to buy all those years ago. I am grateful that on the night of the crash I had a Guardian Angel looking after me and since returning to the UK and Ireland will never drive after taking drink.