Part 5
Just after dinner the ambulance arrived to take me to the airport, at this point I felt a little guilty as when they arrived I was stood up waiting for them. They came with a stretcher expecting me to not be able to walk! I walked down to the ambulance but they put me on the stretcher to put me in the ambulance, with the back raised so I was in a semi-sat up position. As they loaded me into the ambulance they hit my head on the ambulance roof, which wasn't very funny at the time but I laugh about it now, imagine Frank Drebbin as an ambulance man! To add to the comedy, part of the route to the airport was over cobbled streets, not much fun for me as I was in agony over every bump! When we arrived at the airport I was taken in through a gate where the security man just asked if I was OK and waved us through. We drove to a special waiting area right next to the apron which had a TV in with Premiership footy on, I felt like a proper VIP! When the plane was due in they put me back in the ambulance, a bit more carefully this time, and we drove out on to the apron to meet the plane. I saw it land on the runway and then taxi over to us. The pilot, co-pilot and a nurse came out of the plane and while the pilot organised some fuel for the plane the nurse explained what was going to happen and asked me whether I wanted to lie on a stretcher or sit in the plane. I said that I would rather sit as I had spent way too much time lying down in the last few days, I would also be able to see out the windows if I sat.
I managed to walk to the plane and get in and sit down. It was a bit tricky as the plane door was fairly small and normally would have required bending down to get in, obviously not an option for me. I was able to get in by kneeling on the top step and shuffling along on my knees. The plane was a Piper Cheyenne twin turboprop, and I was pretty excited about the trip as I had only ever taken off in a small prop plane once before, and I had never landed in one! The nurse from the insurance company was fantastic, she had brought loads of newspapers, sandwiches, drinks and cakes for the trip and really made us feel very comfortable during the trip.
The journey was fairly uneventful until we started to get near to Carlisle airport. Typically for Cumbria the weather was not brilliant and there was a fair amount of turbulence, probably made to feel worse because we were in a small plane. My wife and the nurse were sat at the front of the plane facing me in the rear. I could see them looking at me and wincing every time we hit some turbulence, and it was pretty painful but not too bad. Shortly before we landed, however, we experienced some very bad turbulence. The plane seemed to fall for a couple of seconds before abruptly regaining normal flight and during this time everything in the plane became weightless and lifted up into the air, including me. Of course when we stopped dropping everything in the plane dropped back down. On the way up I bashed my head on the plane roof and then I was slammed back into my seat which was very painful. At the time I wasn't scared about the turbulence, just about the effect it was having on my back. Although my Doctors hadn't specifically said anything about not dropping onto my backside from a couple of feet, I thought that if I had asked them they would probably have said it wasn't a good idea! It was pretty painful but my main memory is of my wife and the nurse with their heads turned away as they couldn't look at me! Shortly after we touched down to a welcoming committee put on by the Dutch army, they weren't there for me but apparently were on a training exercise and were waiting for us to land before they took off in their helicopters.
At Carlisle another ambulance was waiting to transfer me to Whitehaven, my local, hospital. This journey took about another two hours, although the driver was very smooth for which I was grateful. By the time we arrived at Whitehaven I was completely exhausted and must have looked a real state. I was shivering and shuffling about and was still in a bit of pain from the plane journey. I was taken up to the Orthopaedic ward where a Doctor saw me, I asked for some x-rays to be done to make sure the turbulence had not damaged my back and they agreed to do this straight away. To my relief the x-rays gave me the all clear. While I was there I had the needle removed from my arm that the hospital in Norway had left in and my back dressed. The nurse commented that the wound was healing very well and did not really need dressing, but I got it covered up just to be on the safe side. Again I have to say that my Doctor and the nurse that treated me were all brilliant. At this point I just wanted to go home though and thankfully the Doctor agreed that I was well enough. We ordered a taxi and got him to drive extremely slowly back home, where we arrived at about 9 o'clock. I was very pleased to get there!