Membership Testimonials

An ATV Accident in a Tropical Paradise

Sixty-year-old Norine Gettys proposed a special outing for her family during a fall trip to their favorite Hawaiian island, Kauai. Climbing aboard All Terrain Vehicles (ATVs), the group followed a guide into a lush jungle, planning to picnic at a local waterfall. Just one hour into the excursion, things went drastically wrong.

Coming down a muddy slope, the guide yelled to the group to keep breaking. Ahead of Norine, a friend's vehicle stalled, and the guide pulled to a stop. Norine couldn't stop her ATV in time. "I kept breaking, but he was right in my path, and I slid down into his ATV. My leg was crushed between the two vehicles," she says.

There were no open wounds, but Norine's husband knew at a glance her leg was badly injured. A cellular phone call brought the local fire department to the scene. The rescue team hiked into the area and immobilized Norine's leg using cardboard for bracing. They carried her out to a hill above the highway and used ropes to lower Norine to an ambulance.

"At the hospital, two doctors examined my leg and just stood there shaking their heads," Norine recalls. "That really scared us. One of them looked at me and said, 'This is serious. I don't know what we can do.' That's when I told them I wanted to go home."

Norine's husband, known as "General," called MedjetAssist. Even now, Norine cries as she remembers her MedjetAssist evacuation. "Oh, God. It was such a relief. There was no way I could have flown back on a commercial airline. I had an IV line, and I was getting morphine. Phillip Morris at MedjetAssist told us, 'Don't worry, we'll take care of everything.'"

After that, says Norine's husband, all the Gettys had to do was to settle back for the uneventful ride home to Ohio on MedjetAssist's state-of-the-art, medically equipped aircraft. "They took charge of everything — the ambulance, the hospital paper work — everything," General says. "They told the hospital staff what they expected, and I was surprised at how the hospital staff responded to them. Everyone seemed to sense that these guys knew what they were doing. I felt so relieved that they were taking charge. I met the pilot at the airport, and he also was great. He was full of confidence and did a lot to reassure me."

Likewise, Norine says she felt safe and sound in the hands of the MedjetAssist team. "The nurse never left my side," Norine says. "He stayed right with me, and I never felt any pain. At the airport in Cincinnati, there was an ambulance waiting for me. I said to him, 'I guess this is where we say good bye,' and he said, 'Nope, not until I get you to your hospital bed.'"

Bones in Norine's knee were crushed, three ligaments were torn and her quadriceps muscles were ripped. Following surgery and many months of rehabilitation, Norine, a registered nurse, returned to her job as a Vice President with a home-health agency. She has even been back to Kauai for another vacation, and although she still walks with a limp, she says she counts her blessings -- and one of them was MedjetAssist.

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