Oldenburg, Or The Finger

Warning: slightly graphic injury photos.

We hitch-hiked into Oldenburg, in the north of Germany, arriving at 10pm with a 24-year-old truck driver lugging flowers and plants from the Netherlands up to Sweden. Peter (not his real name), a friend of two of our exchange students whom we had spent some time with in Adelaide, and his father, Alan, picked us up near the off-ramp of the autobahn. The next day, after a delicious breakfast (various bread rolls with cheeses, jams, cold meat and other toppings, yoghurt, and so on), and a lot of lazing around enjoying the beautiful weather and in-depth conversation, in their light-filled home and garden, we decided to go out sailing on a Lake called Bad Zwischenahn Meer. We cycled with Peter to the lake, through the beautiful green city of Oldenburg, one of the most bicycled cities in Europe, then the picturesque German countryside outside the city.

It was a beautiful day and there were quite a number of yachts out on the lake. Peter pulled out a simple picnic of salad and wurst and we enjoyed it as we sailed. The weather could change quite quickly, and looking at the sky and the waves, you could see how it even varied in different parts of the relatively small lake, but for the most part it was fine; the water and the sun were warm, the wind slightly cool. At one point the wind picked up and it started to rain, but it passed within a few minutes and we stayed out for another hour.

But when we went to go back to the marina the wind picked up again and there were a number of yachts trying to get back into the jetty, so it took a few attempts before we could get the yacht into the mooring. As we approached the jetty I put my hand on one of the pylons to slow and steady the boat, forgetting that the 5 metre yacht had a 700 kg keel below the water. As the water was quite choppy the yacht bobbed unexpectedly, and the bow hit the pylon quite hard— with my left ring finger in between. It didn't hurt any more than a regular finger-jammed-in-a-door accident, but when I looked at my finger I thought, "That's not good." It had split open, and it wasn't pretty.

After throwing the tie-rope to a man who was standing on the jetty, I jumped from the boat, clutching my hand, and made my way quickly to yacht club, blood dripping as I went— although not as much as I would have expected. Amanda followed shortly behind as soon as she could disembark, and Peter once the boat was safely tied up. There were a dozen or more people on the balcony above I could have called out to, for some kind of help, but I didn't really know what to ask for. Ambulance? Help? First aid? But someone coming out from the clubrooms saw my finger, and I didn't need to explain. She led me upstairs and into the club, and someone gave me a towel for the bleeding. A few seconds later, a doctor who happened to be there appeared— apparently there are many in the club, and it was a fine Saturday, perfect for sailing— and came to my aid, putting my feet up and bandaging my mutilated finger.

Shortly, an ambulance arrived, which seemed silly for a broken finger, but considering I was potentially in shock I wasn't about to argue. In the ambulance, they had to use round-tipped scissors to remove the bandages again and assess my finger, which took a while as it was quite tightly bound by the first doctor, with a lot of tape. They said they would have to remove my wedding ring, which didn't sound like fun, but they opted to leave that to the hospital. After re-bandaging my finger, much less heavily this time, they took me to the hospital, with Peter along for the ride to translate when my German skills reached their limit. He was cool, encouraging and mature throughout— for want of a better word, as it didn't feel like such— the ordeal. At one point he asked how the pain was, noticing that I was getting a little pale. I told him the adrenalin was doing its job, and it was. Unfortunately there wasn't a spare seat for Amanda, but she was cool and together throughout— even though she thought I had actually lost part of my finger.

The blue sky and the overhanging trees passing above the ambulance skylight were quite beautiful, and the sirens surprisingly quiet on the inside, although the pain got a bit intense as the adrenalin started to wear off. It was a fairly short trip, ten minutes I guess, before we arrived at the nearest hospital. I was slightly baffled when we backed into a garage, the rear doors quite close to a blank wall, until the wall magically opened and I was wheeled, in the stretcher, into the hospital, as if I couldn't walk.

The hospital was a merger between a regular hospital and military hospital, so the doctor was a well-built dude in a navy uniform. Apparently navy doctors have more time to work out. At one point he had to look twice at my (slightly bloody) watch, a gift from my 18th birthday, thinking it was a Rolex Submariner. A good copy, apparently.

Before long he said to me, "We have a problem. We need to remove your [wedding] ring. To do that, I need to give you a local anaesthetic. But that will make your finger swell, which will make it hard to remove." I was more concerned about my finger than the ring, but hoped they could save both. Still quite alert, I offered:

"Why don't you take the ring over the first knuckle, then give me the anaesthetic, then slide it over the rest of my finger?"

"Good plan."

With a little cotton and soap, and a needle that was momentarily more painful than my actual injury, it worked, and man, was that anaesthetic good. I felt quite chirpy after it kicked in (and no, I wasn't on morphine). In fact I was quite chirpy for most of the day. No point getting upset, really. Take it as it comes, don't worry about what you can't change. It's all an adventure.

Ring removed, I had an X-ray, and they found I had a fracture on my first knuckle joint. The hand specialist had been called in. They wanted to operate on my finger within 6 hours of the injury (one or two had passed) to prevent infection. But there was a serious trauma patient on the way who might get priority for the operating room; apparently someone was run over by horses.

"Well, that's ok, a horse injury sounds more urgent." I said.

"No", said Alan, "this is not a hospital for horses!"

It was a surprisingly fun afternoon. Me in the bed, an increasingly bloody bandage draped over my increasingly bloody hand, watched over by Amanda (who kept blowing me loving kisses), translator Peter and Alan— who also happens to be a doctor— who were sitting along the wall. We were chatting and laughing between the occasional visits from Dr Hoffmann, the buff navy guy, and after a while, the hand surgeon. At Amanda's astute request, Alan had brought my passport and insurance details, which saved lots of potential waiting and mucking around. I didn't even need to fill out any forms, except one signature on a document in German which I think was some kind of waiver. After the helicopter landed with the other patient, we learned that they needed the general surgery team, so the hand surgery team could operate shortly. Before long I was read the details of the planned procedure and all the legal stuff about risks and no guarantee of full functionality and so on, as if I didn't know that surgery is dangerous and imperfect— all translated again by future-UN-ambassador Peter, and whisked away to the theatre, again on a bed the whole time in spite of my clear ability to walk.

I didn't even think to go to the toilet until I was in the theatre. Too late. But ok, the specialist, a man of relatively few words with a comforting 30 years' experience, had said it would be a quick procedure— five minutes or so— to put in two or three titanium pins and stitch it up.

After they gave me another local, I didn't feel a thing in my hand except what seemed like half a litre of ethanol, liberally doused over my hand and arm, and the occasional rotation of my hand or the clasping of my other fingers to keep them out of the way. I actually enjoyed the process, none of which I could see thanks to the greenish blue plastic sheet draped above my head (I shudder to think how much disposable plastic and fabric sheeting was used throughout). It was bizarre to hear them crunchily drilling into my presumably bloody bone, and trying to guess when they were inserting pins or stitching me up. I lay there, quite painless, thinking of the absurdity of the situation, occasionally feeling a little silly for my lapse of judgement which caused the whole scenario, but mostly pondering the many ways that I could report the event on facebook. So many options, I might have to do them all, starting with a reassurance to my mum.

Every now and then, one of the nurses would come around to put a hand on my shoulder to comfort me, but it wasn't really needed, because I was having fun. I wondered if I should tell them about the minor dry blood spatters left on the ceiling from a previous patient, but they were talking quietly to each other about whatever what they were doing to the inside of my finger and I didn't want to interrupt. I also wasn't sure of the German word for 'ceiling'. Eventually I stopped thinking so much about facebook and the bizarreness of the procedure and the various pieces of equipment in the room. I just wanted to pee. But it didn't seem an appropriate time to ask, given what was going on behind the screen

When they finally finished, my hand, complete with only one titanium pin (because they found more fractures which complicated things) was bandaged with a half-cast (in German a "Hand shoe" or glove), and the specialist (whose name I still don't know) disappeared before I could even say thank you. They wheeled me out to a holding room where a chatty male nurse asked me (mostly in German, which seemed to be the trend) about how it all happened and our trip and so on, as I shuffled from the theatre bed to the regular bed (although I could still walk of course) and he re-made the theatre bed— more disposable plastic and fabric. I thought about whether "Ich möchte pissen" or "Ich muß pissen" or "Ich möchte in die Toilette gehen" would be more appropriate, but finally asked in English if there was a nearby toilet I could use. The nearest door even looked liked one. But I would have  had to wait until we got downstairs, and the elevator seemed to take forever. It even opened and closed once, and we didn't get in for some unknown reason, he waited more and pushed the button again and we finally went down to the ground floor and he wheeled me through more corridors and handed me over to more nurses and told them I needed to go to the toilet so they wheeled me into a room with 5 other patients and asked the lady visitors to step out for a minute and FINALLY! Relief!

When I emerged from the bathroom the nurses and my bed were apparently gone so I wandered out into the hallway, barefoot and still in my gown and underwear. Apparently dropping me off in that room was the discharge process. I got dressed, with some help from my lovely wife, and we went home, still barefoot, to a delicious flame-grilled-fish-and-sausages barbecue, and non-alcoholic beer— surprisingly drinkable and a better combination with antibiotics. As it happens, it was— and is— encouraging, interesting, exceedingly helpful, and fun, to be staying in a home with two caring doctors.

There are so many take-home lessons for the day: take it as it comes; always go to the toilet before beginning a journey, even to the operating theatre; and if you are going to do something stupid, try to do it in a country with a first class medical system.

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