Ashley Judd is recovering after a very scary accident.
In an Instagram Live with Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times on February 12, the actress from “Double Jeopardy” revealed that she seriously injured her leg during an excursion in the Congo rainforest, when she tripped over a fallen tree in the dark.
She spoke from her hospital bed about how she was now in an “ICU trauma unit in beautiful South Africa, which took me from Congo, a country I love deeply and which, unfortunately, is not equipped to deal with catastrophic injuries like I had.” She explained that the experience further illuminated the privilege she had as a wealthy person visiting the Congo.
As she explained to Kristof: “The difference between a Congolese person and me is the disaster insurance that allowed me, 55 hours after my accident, to reach an operating table in South Africa”.
She detailed the “incredibly distressing” experience, which “started with five hours lying on the forest floor” until it could be evacuated. From there, she spent more than an hour in a hammock being carried by her “Congolese brothers”, who were finally able to bring her back to camp. She went through the ordeal “howling like a wild animal” and biting a stick to try to alleviate some of the pain.
Freak Freak Accidents
Judd then cycled six hours on a motorcycle to get to the nearest place to stay – which, she said, only happened because she was able to pay for transportation. She was taken to the capital Kinshasa before finally being transferred to the hospital.
Despite the tumultuous journey, Judd explained that she was very lucky to be in the position she was in. The Golden Globe nominee shared that many Congolese don’t have the ability to pay “a simple pain-killing pill when you broke a leg in four places and had nerve damage.”
As Judd explained on her Instagram early February 12, she was working in the Congo in a research field studying an endangered species of monkeys called bonobos. “Bonobos are important,” wrote Judd on Instagram. “And the same is true of the people whose ancestral forests live and the other 25,600,000 Congolese who need humanitarian aid.”
See the full Instagram Live above.