All this happened in slow motion, of course, and by the time Lois had clambered down
to reach her, Kay was already assessing the damage to her person. She was very lucky
indeed because she had not broken any bones; however, she looked as though she had
been knocked over by a burro! Her face was scraped deeply and her glasses were bent
quite out of alignment. Her right arm had been torn and almost skinned by the rough
granite from elbow to wrist. She had smaller cuts and gashes on her other arm and her
legs were badly bruised. After realizing that she was not broken, she was terribly anxious
about her camera which took some of the brunt of the fall too since it was secured at her
waist on the belt she was wearing.
It was fortunate that we had brought the first-aid kit along on the hike because we were
able to wash all the cuts and open places clean of dirt and gravel with soap and water.
Then we applied an antibiotic ointment to all the raw areas and covered them with gauze.
By this time, the Bhutanese handler arrived and figured out something untoward had
happened though whether he ever knew exactly what is problematic. He spoke no
English and of course we spoke no Drongzah. At first he seemed to be offering Kay a ride
on one of the burros but we knew that was not usual. Then it appeared that he wanted her
to punish the burro by socking it in the jaw. That seemed a foolish thing to do since it would
not change anything; the animal had not deliberately attacked her, and she would
probably have gotten a swift kick for her pains. We finally got him to go on down the hill
with his three burros and we could only hope that he exacted no reprisal on the burro.
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