Hollywood actress Ashley Judd has sustained serious injuries after a fall during a trek in the Congo rainforest.
The ‘Double Jeopardy’ star is currently in a hospital in South Africa, where she underwent emergency surgery and is now recovering.
The 52-year-old actress relayed her harrowing account of “55 hours” through an Instagram Live from the ICU, saying that a faulty headlamp resulted in her tripping over a fallen tree in the dark and breaking her leg in multiple places.
The actress described lying in the forest for hours before she hand carried out of the jungle, then bandaged up before undertaking a six-hour motorbike trip to a medical centre in South Africa. At one point, Judd stated she had to bite down on a stick to distract from the pain, while “howling like a wild animal.”
She said that she is “in an ICU trauma unit in beautiful South Africa, which has taken me in from the Congo, a country I deeply love which is not, unfortunately, equipped to deal with massive catastrophic injuries like I have had”.
“The difference between a Congolese person and me is disaster insurance that allowed me 55 hours after my accident to get to an operating table in South Africa,” Judd added, while speaking to New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof during the chat.
The actress also stressed on her privilege, noting that the Congo villages lack not only electricity but “a simple pill to kill the pain when you’ve shattered a leg in four places and have nerve damage”.