Helicopter Evac – Way to Go!

Morning dawns and both Zac and I are quite childishly excited about the prospect of a helicopter evac. You see, neither of us have actually been on a helicopter before, although we did firmly believe we were going on one for several strenuous days while stuck in Lukla…

And a helicopter evac, even if rather unfortunately preceded by a broken arm in the middle of fucking nowhere, Outer Mongolia, is undeniably cool.

Thanks to said unbearably lengthy sojourn in Lukla, I can now tell the sound of a helicopter from the sound of a plane with the obsessive precision of the sort of chap that hangs around airports wearing Fairisle and binoculars. Or used to, until we got all arsey about terrorism, anyway.

“What TYPE of helicopter will it be?” asks Zac. “An Apache? Or one of those little ones they have in Nepal?”

“Not an Apache,” I say, sorrowfully. “I very much doubt it will be an Apache… Probably like those little ones in Nepal.”

But, still, a four and a half hour private scenic flight over Mongolia, at a cost of over $30,000, is really not the kind of thing I could have sprung for myself.

As that magical chug-chug-chug emanates from overhead, I am more than a little discombobulated when it proceeds to overshoot the town entirely. Huh?!

Time passes. I know, from Lukla, that anything to do with helicopters is intrinsically not to be relied on, and try not to jump for joy at every passing four-wheel drive.

Instead, I get organised, chucking out or donating everything I can to keep our collective weight down, paying for our medical treatment, and handwriting a receipt in English with some pidgin Mongolian at the bottom that I can keep for insurance purposes. (Cost of jeep, meds, field treatment, hospital treatment and ward for the night? A smidgen over 50 dollars.)

I call Ganbaa. All our non-horse-trekking belongings – including vital things like bank cards, laptops and a mountain of Mongolian cash – are currently at his place in Khatgal. “Someone from the village is flying to UB this afternoon,” he says. “I can send it with them.”

Shirley rings. Takeoff has been delayed. They reckon they’ll touch down at 2pm.

The grassy lot outside the front of the clinic looks easily large enough to put a helicopter down, at least by Nepalese standards. And, as that magical chug-chug-chug emanates from overhead, I am more than a little discombobulated when it proceeds to overshoot the town entirely.

Huh?!

I call the chopper company. They haven’t overshot. They’ve just touched down.

“Am I the first horse-riding injury of the season?” Zac asks. “You are,” says Doctor Suki, grinning. “I’m honoured,” says Zac.

Doctor Suki, a charming Mongolian medic with SOS Medica, shows up at the clinic to inspect poor Zac’s arm, shoulder and vital signs. I can’t help noticing that Doctor Suki’s expression on inspection of the arm is not dissimilar to the doctor’s in the field.

“Am I the first horse-riding injury of the season?” Zac asks.

“You are,” says Doctor Suki, grinning.

“I’m honoured,” says Zac.

“How does it look?” I ask.

“I’m not sure,” he says, with the typical Asian unwillingness to deliver bad news, as well as the good sense of a doctor who doesn’t want to prejudge an examination.

“Do you think you’re going to be able to fix it at the clinic?” I ask.

His face tells me that we’re likely looking at evacuation out of Mongolia.

Oh Jesus.

“I’m not sure our insurers will pay for that,” I say.

“They paid for the helicopter,” he says. “Relax. They’re committed.”

This entails sliding him onto a thin mattress, placing said mattress into the back seat of a jeep which has been hastily cleared of cardboard boxes, bundling me plus our bags into the front, and bumping through the grassy “streets” of Tsagaannuur, a process which is every bit as uncomfortable as it sounds

I ring Ganbaa to confirm our laptops, bank cards, etc. are on their way to UB. They’re not: the guy who was flying today has cancelled, and Ganbaa doesn’t know when he’ll be going next.

Bugger. If we’re being flown out of Ulaanbaatar, which now seems likely, our possessions need to be there, because god knows how else we get our possessions from Khatgal to whatever country we end up in: it’s around three hours’ drive from the small airport at Mörön.

“Do you think we can get the chopper to set down in Khatgal?” I ask Doctor Suki. “It’s pretty much on the way. I think we head right over it.”

“Call the helicopter firm,” he says.

I call the helicopter firm. They think they can do it without adjusting budget, or significantly adjusting flight path.

Where do they need to stop? Do I have the GPS coordinates? No, I say, but I know a man who does.

I ring Ganbaa, a man of immense common sense. “I think I know a place where I can drive out easily, and they can set the helicopter down, so I can meet you with your things,” he says.

I text him the chopper firm’s number, text the chopper firm Ganbaa’s number, and begin to make thank yous and farewells to the lovely, lovely staff at the clinic.

The helicopter guy rings me back. “Yes, we can set down. It’s all arranged.”

Doctor Suki shoots Zac full of morphine, and whacks in an IV drip, in preparation for the transfer to the chopper, which entails sliding him onto a thin mattress, placing said mattress into the back seat of a jeep which has been hastily cleared of cardboard boxes, bundling me plus our bags into the front, and bumping through the grassy “streets” of Tsagaannuur, a process which is every bit as uncomfortable as it sounds.

“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god,” I squeak — my second bout of hysterical, hands-over-face squeaking in two days. “He’s crashing! Oh my god!”

And yet… There is something intrinsically exciting about riding in a helicopter. We have to wear padded earphones to drown out the noise of the rotors, but Doctor Suki plays tour guide, giving us a running commentary on what we’re seeing through his headset mic: waterfalls, extinct volcanoes, snow-capped mountains and endless, endless steppe.

Zac travels lying down, in a stretcher on the floor, hooked up to some kind of terrifying machine that – much like those weird machines that monitor your child’s heartbeat during labour – are much more worrying for the amateur than a state of blissful ignorance.

The morphine makes him sleepy, so he nods off at one point, and then vomits, silently and copiously, in his sleep, at precisely the point when his heartbeat drops to 60 per minute.

“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god,” I squeak — my second bout of hysterical, hands-over-face squeaking in two days. “He’s crashing! Oh my god!”

Doctor Suki looks at me, rather mystified, and asks the nurse to remove the vomit from Zac’s person. I pull myself together, remove my hands from my face and apologise.

Over the next few days that Zac spends attached to one of these machines, I’ll learn that a child’s resting heartbeat varies within a much wider range than an adult’s…

Ganbaa makes the “call me” sign, over the roar of the helicopter, and runs back to his jeep, hands over his ears, looking, in his black leather jacket, for all the world like a stuntman in a movie.

The chopper flies over the vast and scenic expanse of Khovsgol Nuur, the lake we’d trekked by for five beautiful days, in around half an hour. Khatgal appears, a cluster of cabins and gers.

We set down. Ganbaa runs from his jeep towards the helicopter, staying clear of the rear rotor, and hands in the most critical parts of our belongings (farewell posh frocks, and clean underwear, that I’d left behind in Khatgal to change into on our return to the land of hot showers).

“Thank you!” I say. “Thanks so much for all your help!”

Ganbaa makes the “call me” sign, over the roar of the helicopter, and runs back to his jeep, hands over his ears, looking, in his black leather jacket, for all the world like a stuntman in a movie.

The helicopter hovers, lurches, rises belly-up into the air, and heads across the flatlands to Mörön to refuel. Doctor Suki and I sneak into a VIP part of the airport for a crafty fag, while I quietly sing the Hallelujah Chorus that Zac’s not being treated in this absolute dump of a town.

“So you see a lot of horse-riding injuries out here?” I ask.

“Oh yes, in peak season,” Doctor Suki says. “It tends to be mainly horse-riding injuries, though we do get quite a few motorcycle injuries as well.”

It’s two and a half hours more to Ulaanbaatar, and by the time we arrive it’s not that far off sunset, and there’s a bona fide ambulance – a land ambulance, y’all! With a stretcher! And sirens! And everything!

After this long in the wilds, UB looks like New York to me. And, insha’allah, over 30 hours and over $30,000 out from injury, Zac’s arm is actually going to get fixed.

World Nomads offers cover for over 150 activities, including horse riding. If you don’t have travel insurance yet, and don’t have $30,000 handy for a helicopter, do check them out.

Image credit: SOS Medica Mongolia.