A Medical Emergency on the Milford Track by Tim Ghazzawi:
The paramedic asked me, “Do you have your phone?” I could barely hear him over the noise of the whirring helicopter blades. My body hurt as I nodded. “Good,” he said. “You’ll want pictures of this.” Thankfully, what he was referring to wasn’t the gash on my head, though I took pictures of that, too. Instead he pointed outside the helicopter window. We were hundreds of feet above the New Zealand Fiordland. The four-day trail I’d been hiking a thin faded line below me.
I’d began the Milford Track three days prior. Just getting to the trailhead had been complicated and I felt lucky to be there. Milford is by far New Zealand’s most popular multi-day trek. Despite its expense, spaces can be reserved months in advance and often sell out in minutes. Four days of pristine hiking trails that weave through beech forest, glacial valleys, and the spray of cascading waterfalls awaited me. There was also its history. In 1908, The Spectator magazine declared the Milford Track “the finest walk in the world”. Though there are arguably finer walks out there, the nickname has stuck and I can confirm that for the first three days on my trek things on the Milford were very fine indeed.
Until I fell. I tripped. On what, I don’t know. Headfirst down the rocky path. Blood poured down my face and filled the hand I held out in front of me. I felt with my tongue the sharp edge of a fractured tooth. My knee hurt beneath my hiking pants. My hands and elbows were scratched and scraped. The weight of my pack held me down. Ahead two other hikers had heard my fall and turned around. “Can you help me?” was all I was able to say. One of them ran to find a park ranger. The other patched me up as best he could. Mummy-wrapped my head in gauze from his first aid kit to stop the bleeding. Within the hour I was airlifted to the Queenstown hospital. A few more hours and I was glued up, medicated, and discharged.
The good news: My head now only barely hurts, my new tooth looks normal-ish, and my travel journey continues. I also got a free ride in a helicopter, a product of New Zealand’s free accident care. Call it a Christmas miracle, if you like, though that feels generous.
The bad news: There is still no rest for the weary. On the night I was discharged, the only reasonably priced accommodation I could find was a top bunk in a dormitory party hostel downtown. As I clambered up the bunk’s rickety ladder, thoughts of reinjuring myself persisted. Early the next morning, an alarm went off from within the bunk beneath me. I heard the man inside scramble to find the source but his alarm raged on for at least five minutes, at which point he said to me from behind my curtain – just like I had said before under very different circumstances – “Can you help me?” His phone was stuck between the wall and our bed.
THE FACTS
I was lucky to book my hike on the Milford Track after a last-minute cancellation opened up for me over the Christmas holiday. I’d made it three days almost to Dumpling Hut before my accident ended my trek. Normally, the Milford consists of four days and runs between Glade Wharf and Sandfly Point (and a glorious boat ride throughout the Sound).
