Zanzibar, East Africa July 2007

I remember the impact, but nothing else until I tried to get up from the bloodied spot on asphalt. Having landed on my back, I rolled unsteadily to my left to get up, but couldn’t, and then to my right, and couldn’t. 

The Vespa motor scooter on which I had been a passenger took only minor damage when it was hit from behind by a mini-van, and my brother, the Vespa driver, was not hurt at all.

We had been on our way to see a troop of rare red colobus monkeys in Jozani Forest, in south-central Zanzibar, an island nation federated with Tanzania in East Africa. The collision postponed that excursion.

Finally rolling onto my knees and then into a semi-upright stance, I was still in mild-shock as I made my way to sit on a low curb at the side of the highway.

Blood coursed from the top of my head, behind my right ear and onto the front of my light blue shirt which already bore black streaks from what seemed to be tire tracks.

Dozens of Zanzibaris gathered around me at the side of the road. A young girl about seven in a blue frock stood beside me as she peered intensely at my dazed, whiter-than-normal face. She grimaced empathetically as she stared into my eyes, but was startled and moved away when I returned her gaze with a faint smile. 

How strange I must have seemed.

Within minutes I had recovered sufficiently to consult with my brother about how to proceed. After self-monitoring my body for pain, I concluded my head wound was probably not serious, but my ribs were another matter.

It hurt to breathe, but I was breathing. My brother hailed a taxi, and sent me on my way to our hotel where I soon found the Albuquerque doctor who was traveling with us in East Africa. With an ear to my chest and back, he determined that ribs had not punctured lungs, and that the scalp wound was minor. Still, he advised, bruised ribs are notoriously painful.

Indeed they were, especially during the jarring, dirt-road bus ride two days later from the Tanzania port city Dar es Salaam to Mombasa, Kenya.

A week later, back in New Mexico, I was undergoing pre-operation procedures for a delayed kidney stone removal. I suggested that the required x-rays for that procedure might also show whether there was any lasting damage by my still-painful ribs. 

When the x-rays were read, the results were startling. Nothing had been broken by the Zanzibar collision, but I had a fractured vertebrae higher up on the spine. I had caused a compression fracture by lifting and carrying a heavy box to the garage of my Corrales home three and a half months before I left for Africa.

—Jeff Radford