Actress and animal rights advocate Ashley Judd is recovering at a trauma unit in South Africa after nearly losing a leg in a “catastrophic” fall in the Congo rainforest.
In a live Instagram chat with New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof – watch below – Judd, speaking from his bed in the ICU, says he was walking in a Congo rainforest when he tripped over a fallen tree, breaking his leg. Judd, a frequent visitor to the Congo, was working to track the Bonobos, a species of large monkey threatened with extinction.
Describing “55 incredibly distressing hours” during which she was transported, partly because of being carried by hand, partly on a six-hour motorcycle trip, from a remote location in the rainforest to a medical center in South Africa, Judd holds the stick she was biting to distract from the pain, “howling like a wild animal”. The actress, sister of Wynona Judd and daughter of Naomi Judd, remembers having passed out and lost consciousness when she went into shock, repeatedly reciting “the Lord is my shepherd, I will not lack” from Psalm 23.
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Judd tells Kristof that despite the pain – “at the limit of my limit” – and the fear, she was fully aware of her “privilege” in having the opportunity to transfer to a fully equipped medical center. Most Congolese, she says, would have remained in the village, lost her leg and perhaps her own life.
“The difference between a Congolese person and me is the disaster insurance that allowed me 55 hours after my accident reached an operating table in South Africa,” she says, adding that Congo’s villages have not only electricity, but ” a simple pill to kill the pain when you break a leg in four places and have nerve damage. “
Judd further explained on his own Instagram page, writing that he decided to talk about the accident to spread the word about “what it means to be Congolese in extreme poverty without access to health care, any pain medication, any type of service, or choices . “
She continues: “Join us and learn what it’s like for much of the world – and how you can help. Bonobos are important. And the same is true of the people whose ancestral forests live and the other 25,600,000 Congolese who need humanitarian aid. “