In the summer of 2015, Shelagh and I went on a Disney cruise
at the request of our then 4-year old granddaughter. We sailed on the Disney Dream and had a
blast. Afterwards, Shelagh requested
another Disney cruise as a present for her 70th birthday. Being a faithful, loving husband I arranged
to make that happen, along with one day each at the Epcot and Magic Kingdom.
I got in touch with Cousin Michelle, the world-famous Disney travel agent, to make the arrangements.
Working with Michelle made everything frightfully easy…I don’t think our
phone call lasted more than 30 minutes and we arranged everything I wanted: the
right stateroom, the right hotel on the Monorail with a room overlooking the
park so we could see the fireworks without having to brave the crowds on the
way back. It was perfect. When Michelle asked if I wanted trip insurance
I fortunately said, “Yes.” And that’s
what this post is about: the need for that insurance.
A really cool part of our Disney experience was that when we
packed our bags, we put Disney’s tags on our luggage and when we dropped them
at the airport, we wouldn’t have to handle them again until we arrived back in
RVA. In this scenario, Disney picks them
up at the airport and delivers them to your stateroom. And when you disembark, you pack, leave the
bags outside your stateroom and then pick them up at your home airport. Pretty neat, in a “I have people to do that
for me” sort of way.
We got aboard, unpacked, pigged out at lunch (as one can do
on a cruise), went through the mandatory evacuation drill then headed up on
deck as we set sail. We departed Port Canaveral
at the same time as the Carnival Sunrise.
The sun was shining and the warm sea breeze blew in our faces with its
welcome saltiness. Brown pelicans were
diving for fish all around us and dolphins frolicked just ahead of our bow. It was wonderful. We did other cruise-ish things, but I’ll
spare you those details.
The next morning, the day of Shelagh’s 70th
birthday, we were pigging out at breakfast (as one can do on a cruise) as the
ship docked in Nassau. We’ve been to the
Bahamas a couple of times and set our sights on just two things for our day
excursion, both within walking distance of the port: conch fritters and the
Queen’s Staircase.
The Queen’s Staircase is 66 steps, carved out of the
limestone by slaves. They were built in
the 1790s and later named in honor of Queen Victoria. The steps were used to access Fort
Fincastle. Fort Fincastle, also built in the
1790s to guard Nassau and its port, offers a wonderful view from its
walls. Or so they say.
We climbed the Staircase and paid for admission to the Fort. Shelagh and I wandered around the grounds
before going to the top. As I was
entering the main building, I heard behind me the distinctive and all too
familiar sound of Shelagh succumbing to gravity.
The first time I was present when Shelagh had a skirmish
with Newtonian physics and lost was on our honeymoon in Scotland, coincidentally enough,
at a castle. She failed to negotiate the
last of some steps she was descending. I
was just a bit too far behind her to do anything about it and watched
helplessly as she landed on all fours.
She was OK, but she made an “Ooof!” sound that was unique to her.
The familiar ooof sound she made at Fincastle was followed
by a very atypical loud groaning. I
wheeled around and went back out to see her on the ground and writhing in quite
a bit of pain. She had missed a single
step down. As I approached her, doing a
scene survey, I caught sight of her injury.
Now, I’ve always known that Shelagh is just the loveliest
creature, lovely all the way down to her bones. That day I got visual confirmation of this:
she had a compound fracture of her left ankle.
It’s a good thing I’m a paramedic because that thing was pretty gross.
The staff at Fort Fincastle called New Providence EMS. While waiting for the squad to arrive,
Shelagh was well composed once she figured out that squirming made it
worse. There were many well-meaning
bystanders who wanted to help in typically not really helpful ways but I was
able to fend them off by identifying myself as a paramedic and Shelagh as a
nurse. They were happy to leave us to
ourselves when they got a load of the ankle.
New Providence EMS bandaged and
splinted her ankle and took us to Princess Margaret Hospital (PMH), whose
ambulance entrance is probably less than 300 yards from where Shelagh fell.
The squad took her to the trauma room and
sent me out front to get her registered.
As she sent me to registration the attending paramedic, Miss Carey, said
she would make sure the patient representative knew about us. That was of little comfort. I am normally a fairly laid back,
roll-with-the-punches guy but here I am, waiting to register my wife in a
foreign emergency department for treatment of an injury that could cause her to
lose her foot while our ride is going to leave in about 5 hours with all our
stuff. My anxiety levels went through
the roof. I could get back to the Dream
in about 10 minutes on foot to tell them about our plight and to sort things
out, but I wasn’t about to leave Shelagh alone in this environment.
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| Princess Margaret Hospital |
After what seemed like an
eternity in the waiting room but was probably only 20 minutes, my name was
called. Miss Sherman, the patient rep,
took me back to her office. I explained
what our situation was and she said they handled this sort of thing all the
time. She called the RH Curry Company, port agents for Disney Cruise Lines in Nassau, and told Adrian Albury, the agent on
duty, about us. Adrian showed up shortly
and we went out into the parking lot for further discussions. He explained how these things normally work
and put me in touch with Corey Konczal, Disney’s Medical Operations
Manager. Corey said before deciding a
course of action we’d have to wait and see if the doctor thought it was severe
enough to admit her. I told him she was
definitely getting admitted and described how much bone was exposed and the
disturbingly odd angle at which her foot and leg came together. He no longer needed to hear from a
physician…compound fractures need immediate surgery. He spoke briefly with Adrian again, who said
something to the effect of, “OK. I’ll take care of it.”
Suddenly, the magic of Disney
sprang into action and came to my rescue.
Adrian took me back to the
ship. As we boarded, he explained to the
crew that Shelagh and I were debarking for a medical emergency and they took it
from there. Since we weren’t just
day-trippers in Nassau anymore, we were going to need passport clearance and
landing cards, so I gave our passports to a crew member for processing. I was then taken to our stateroom by a lovely
Serbian lady named Mirjana who helped me pack all our stuff. We worked quickly but had a nice conversation
and I learned she had just received her Bachelor’s degree in nursing and would
be taking her licensing exam in a few weeks.
We left the stateroom and went to the ship’s Guest Services area where
there was a short wait for Malisa (from Thailand) to bring me the stamped and
validated passports and the landing cards.
I was taken back down to the gangway where Adrian was still waiting for
me.
Adrian then started making hotel
arrangements for me. As he was doing
that, I had a chance to chat briefly with a Nepali crew member named
Rabin. I asked where in Nepal he was from
and his face lit up when I said I had been to his hometown of Kathmandu. It turns out that he did a brief stint in the
army as a Gurkha. My short chat with him
reinforced my belief that while the Gurkhas are generally considered the
fiercest warriors on the planet ("If a man says he is not afraid of dying, he is either lying or he is a Gurkha."), they are the nicest, funniest savage killers
you’ll ever meet.
Adrian booked me in to the hotel
and took me to the Bahamian Customs Office.
As we were going in, a taxi driver asked Adrian if a cab was needed and
Adrian said yes and that we’d be right out.
He was right. Because I was with
him, all we had to do was go in, they put customs stickers on our suitcases and
my backpack and we waltzed out. Elapsed
time in Customs was less than two minutes.
As we exited the building, Adrian pointed to the taxi driver and said,
“Go with him. You can trust him, he’s old school.” Even though my encounter with Adrian was
brief I understood that this was the highest-order compliment.
The hotel room booked for me was
at the British Colonial Hilton. It is,
to say the least, swanky. How
swanky? Put it this way: A James Bond
movie was filmed there. Twice. The British Colonial appeared in both Thunderball and Never Say Never Again.
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| The British Colonial Hilton's lobby |
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| The British Colonial Hilton's private beach from the 5th floor balcony |
Adrian said the hotel was in a
good neighborhood and right across the street from the US embassy. When I got to my room I looked out the window
and saw…McDonalds. Not what I was
expecting, but not totally inaccurate, either.
I sat down briefly to gather my
thoughts before I returned to PMH. What
had just transpired was an absolute whirlwind of activity. It was rapid fire, but well-rehearsed. To make things right for me, certain
activities had to happen in a particular order and with all due haste. All these things happened, on my behalf, in
less than 3 hours, relieving me of half of my problems…and I was just along for
the ride. From my perspective it was
nothing short of a miracle, nothing less than the Magic of Disney. I have an overwhelming amount of gratitude
for the people who helped me, not just those who are named above, but also all
the others who I didn’t see who were acting on my behalf. Thank you all!
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| McEmbassy |
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