Worst Vacation Experience

My wife and I booked a vacation to Small Hope Bay Lodge, Andros, Bahamas. For a gift to ourselves and to celebrate turning forty and our tenth wedding anniversary we went on this vacation without our children. We left them with a schoolteacher/nanny who stayed at our house.

We got up early to catch a 7 a.m. flight, parked the car at the airport park and ride, got to the counter and found out we needed our birth certificates. We were told by Bahamas air to just bring drivers license. We were told we could not board the plane and would need our original birth certificate not a photocopy or a hospital birth certificate. My wife had her original at home I never had one. Home was 30 miles from the airport. We left the airport went home and got my wife's birth cert. and then drove another 30 mi. to Philadelphia to the state office building to get mine. Got to the state building and was told there was a 2 week wait to receive it. I cried to them and got it then. Back to the airport. We would miss our connecting flight to Andros at Nassau so we stayed at the Nassau Marriott to get up again the next day early to catch a plane to Andros.

We get to Andros, get to the lodge in time for breakfast, unpack go for a walk talk to the host about setting up diving and fishing stuff for the week relax and decide to take a short bike ride. On the way back to the lodge my wife got the bicycle in soft sand. When she yelled and I looked she was airborne over a four-foot high wall. Disappeared. when I got to the wall she was crumpled on a coral bed. I thought she was dead. No help anywhere. Couldn't leave her the tide was coming in. I carried her but couldn't get her over the wall. She was smashed and semi conscious. I flagged down a car got her in and followed the car on my bike back to the lodge. Got her to an island clinic. Very third world. The owner of the lodge showed up and flew us to Nassau, Doctors hospital. Broken elbow, missing hair, abrasions head to foot, elbow, need surgery. 11:30 p.m. we crashed in a hotel, got up early again 7:30 a.m. flight to Miami connect hours later to Philadelphia. Wife's in a wheelchair very sore arm splinted. Home that night, doctors the next day, surgery the next. Up early every day. Home Saturday, plate in her elbow, sore as hell all over.

Seven days later I come home. She is vomiting. Back to the hospital. Her spleen was separated into two lobes and was hemorrhaging. One and a half weeks in the hospital. Six weeks in bed. She is a realtor. Lost all her customers, they can't wait. Got the plate removed a couple months later after the bone infection started. Guess we will save our money and try again. The four hours in Andros were enjoyable except the end of the bike ride.

George

 

 

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