Motorcycle accident in Chile, Redion steps in

Testimonial:

David Denis, a young medical student, passionate about photography and a keen motorcycle trekker in remote corners of the world, set off in October 2015 for Latin America to begin a long, year-long transamerican motorcycle journey that would take him from the south of Latin America all the way to the far reaches of Alaska, ending in Montreal or New York.
Redion decided to support his exceptional project by granting him medical assistance cover for the duration of his trip.
Everything goes as planned, until the day a motorcycle accident in Chile interrupts this wonderful journey.
David tells his story…

Motorcycle trekking in southern Chile

"After 4 days of trekking in the magnificent Cochamo valley, in southern Chile, here I am back on the road… I had missed the sensations of riding a motorcycle: the wind caressing my face, the breathtaking landscapes rolling by, the feeling of being completely immersed in the nature I'm riding through… exceptional! Today I'm setting off on the famous "Carretera Austral", crossing southern Chile from the town of Puerto Montt to the glaciers in the south. The landscapes are said to be as magnificent as they are varied: lakes, rivers, waterfalls, rocky mountains, all kinds of forests, glaciers, underwater caves… I can't wait to discover it all.

So off I go, on this magnificent, world-famous road. Just as famous is the climate – to say the least, changeable – of this region of the American continent. The four seasons we know can indeed occur within a single day. Bad luck, I start off with rain… Well, that's part of the deal. The road is bad, very bad. The gravel is uneven, sometimes made up of large stones, sometimes reduced to a deep layer of sand. Riding is tiring and difficult, especially with my motorcycle loaded down with all my luggage. The wind picks up… I slow down.

A bad bend… and then the accident

After about an hour of riding, and while I was going at a more than careful speed, a bend catches me by surprise. It's much tighter than I thought. I'm forced to straighten the bike, slam on the brakes, then dive back into the bend… I veer off… I head towards the edge of the road… At the pitiful speed of 5 km/h, I end up losing my balance in the thick layer of loose stones lining the road. In a final effort to keep my machine steady, I plant my right foot firmly on the ground. However, what little speed I have left sweeps my right foot backwards. The wind, the rain and the weight of my loaded motorcycle do the rest: my bike crashes down heavily on my foot and the lower part of my right leg, twisted backwards. I start screaming, screaming like I've never had to before. The pain in my foot shoots through me, the tension on the inner side of my knee is worrying, but even more unbearable is the panic that grips me:
Is my leg broken?
Am I bleeding?
Is someone going to come and help free me…?

So there I am, sitting on my motorcycle, itself lying on its right side, with my right foot twisted underneath it. Very quickly, I realise I'll have to lift the bike up myself. After a minute that feels like ten, I make up my mind: I need to get my other leg over the bike so I can use it to lift the machine and free my right leg. As I do this, I know full well I'm going to twist my right knee, but I have no choice: "one, two, three! CRACK!! My right knee cracks loudly with the movement. You can easily imagine the superhuman effort it takes to lift a big 250kg trail bike alone, especially in sand. Strangely, this time, fuelled by the adrenaline of the moment, it didn't seem so hard to manage, even on one leg. I then managed to free my right leg, before collapsing against the bike, exhausted, and waiting for outside help.

Calling Redion from the other side of the world

Everything then happened very fast, without me really taking it in. A woman in her sixties, working in her vegetable garden a few hundred metres away, had heard my screams and came running over. The police arrived. I was immediately transferred by ambulance to Puerto Montt, 2 hours away. Once in the emergency room of the hospital I had visited, as a doctor this time, a few days earlier, my first instinct was to contact Redion.

Within 5 minutes, a file had been opened in my name, the administrative department of the hospital I was in had been contacted, and initial contact had been made with the medical team. Before letting the medical staff take care of me, all I had left to do was let my family know. I was just about to do so when my phone rang: it was my father, and he already knew!

Redion had called him immediately as soon as the file was opened, and continued to do so throughout my three days in hospital, to give him regular updates on my condition.
The MRI and the orthopaedic surgeon are reassuring: it's "only" a knee sprain with a torn right medial collateral ligament. The cruciate ligaments and menisci are intact… phew! Even so, as is often the case with orthopaedic injuries, recovery will take a long time, and I won't be able to hit the road again for another month.
Fortunately, on top of covering the medical and transport costs linked to this incident, Redion is going to let me recover in the best possible conditions at a hotel in the area.

Waiting out my recovery

So I'm writing these lines from Puerto Varas, a pleasant little town on the shores of Lake LLanquihue, near the Osorno volcano, which I can see on the horizon. This accident reminds me just how quickly a trip can take a turn for the worse in just a few seconds. What matters most, though, is coming out of it unharmed, and always having the peace of mind of knowing, somewhere in the back of your mind, that you're not alone…"