| I couldn't accurately describe nearly being eaten by a crazy gator as a Zen experience but it really didn't bother me that much. All in all, I laughed to myself about the crazy ridiculousness of a croc attack much more than I worried, and I barely felt pain or panic. SUMMARY I was chomped by a ten-foot prehistoric monster but I survived and will retain my hearing, vision, movement, and mental function – whatever good that's doing me. My ears are a little disfigured and I'll have some gnarly scars but that's it.
–beautiful jungle lake –skinny dipping, backstroke –croc pulled me under, tried to snap my neck –nos luchamos; me quité de—get ready for it—the Jaws of Death –swam ashore, rangers drove me to Hospital Sayaxché, 100 stitches –laid in hospital for 3 days on antibiotics Park Photos: Injury Photos (bloody!):
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SETTING
I had been in El Petén, the jungle and ancient home to the Mayans, for a week and a half. The longitudinal middle of the ancient Maya kingdom. Beautiful lakes, really interesting wildlife, birds with calls that sound like firecrackers (el oropéndulo). The ancient ruins of Tikal, El Mirador, Yaxhá, and many sites yet to be discovered. Today not many people live here. It's a major stopoff for narcocorreos.
On the recommendation of one of the hostel owners I went south from Flores toward El Ceibal, a national park where you can camp the night.
During the walk to El Ceibal Wednesday, I happened on another INaB park, El Rosario, very small but the rangers were friendly and I passed the night with them in a cabin. They lent me a bicycle to get back to town for dinner. I stayed up for a few hours reading by candlelight and watching the stars traverse the night sky. Venus or Mars, I'm not sure which, has been especially bright. Around dusk you can see sheets of fireflies pulsing and the air smells like jasmine.
RISING ACTION
I went into town on Thurs 22 Jan to pay some bills online. Came back and worked on the park bicycle for a while. I didn't realize how late it was getting (about 4 by the time we were done). Crocs inhabit the lake at night but over decades of people swimming here there has never been an attack on a human (at least not that anyone remembers). The rangers invited me to go out to the nearby El Paraíso with them after I finished my swim. Thought to myself, "What a beautiful lake! I had better skinny dip in this thing before my life gets away from me without doing anything exciting. Andrew Herr skinny dipped in Lago Petén Itzá! Time to get naked." The attached El Rosario.jpg was taken a few days after my escape, a few hours earlier in the day, with people on the dock. So picture the scene like it, but with a softer light, and no other person around. Utter tranquillity. 15 snowy egrets and great egrets, snow white, were gathered in one tree (mid-right) near the fondo of the lake. I started swimming with the idea of doing laps. I approached the fondo, where tall grasses mask a narrow entrance to the arroyo leading down to the Passion River, then turned around. The water was crystal clear but I still felt a low-level fear of underwater beasts. I ignored the feeling. When you're a kid and swim in a lake, there are always rumors of sharks. But everybody knows they're just rumors. Además, I'm surely more likely to be harmed by malicious humans than by barba marías, monos saraguates, jaguares, tiburones, or cocodrilos. Right? As I neared the flock of birds, they took off from the tree—white flying left as a migrating black flock (¿orioles?) much higher went the opposite direction. What a pristine scene. I continued a little closer to the fondo just for a look, but I was sure that there really would be crocodiles returning home from work if I swam far enough down the river. Maybe they guard eggs in a grueta off the arroyo. MAIN ACTION Returning towards the dock, I switched strokes from breast to crawl to backstroke. Ahhh, so relaxing. Tranquilo, as they say. Now here comes the violent part. My thoughts occurred really fast: the following couldn't have lasted more than 1 minute, and usually I can only hold my breath for like 30 seconds so probably less. First I heard that movie-sound of rushing water, kind of like the same one you hear in Jaws. Then I felt a clamp on the sides of my head (from behind, as I swam con la boca arriba). Before I understood what was happening, I was underwater. However my unconscious must have known what was up, because I was HYPED UP on adrenaline. I didn't feel any pain. A second underwater and I actually laughed to myself. Inner monologue: "You've got to be kidding me! Crocodiles don't actually attack people. But you know, if they did, I am sure I would be the one it would happen to. What does that Worst Case Scenarios book say about croc attacks? Lili would know. Well, I'm underwater, so I couldn't ask her even if she were here. With a shark you're supposed to punch it on the nose. I don't think that would work here...." As I was thinking this I instinctively tried to open the croc's mouth. "Oh yeah, they have really strong mouth-closing muscles. So much for brains over brawn..." Alright, like 3 seconds later, the croc started to whip me by the head. "A-ha, that's right, well I guess it's going to break my neck then." Thought about crocs wrestling wildebeests into savannah watering holes on the Discovery Channel. "That isn't such a bad way to go, really." Remembered the reading I did about various methods of capital punishment: if you have the right length of rope, hanging can be the most humane because it kills the victim instananeously. Here comes oblivion, I thought. So the crocodile snapped my neck, but as you know, that didn't kill me. Now I faced the possibility of drowning, a death I have always thought would suck. I started awkwardly punching the crocodile as close to the eyes as I could (thanks Worst Case Scenarios), which probably wasn't very close. Remember that my back was to its body.
Somehow my 'hard right' didn't much bother this dinosaur. I can't exactly describe to you how I did escape its toothy maw, but it felt like when an older brother has you in a headlock, and you just squirm and wrench yourself away in whatever way you can. There are some pokes in my left palm where I pushed on the upper teeth, and maybe you could reconstruct the way I actually wriggled out using the lacerations on my cranio. Perhaps being relaxed while the croc whipped me inclined it to loosen up, too. Anyway I wrenched my head away from the croc, determined not to drown, and easily found my way to the surface. I was afraid that it was going to bite again and so realized that I had to get out a scream right away. Just then I couldn't recall the Spanish for "help" or "crocodile", so I just said, "Gah!" I'm usually soft-spoken but the volume was definitely there when I needed it. I thought to myself, "You're not out of the water yet. Hey! That idiom makes sense now." A few breast-strokes later my foot still hadn't been chomped by the beast. I had gotten out a number of good gritas and remembered the words ayuda and cocodrilo. I kept imagining that a little swirl of water behind my heel was the near-miss jaws of that crocodile. Now that I had survived the main attack I knew I could possibly make it ashore. And if not, it was going to REALLY hurt when that thing munched my soft side, took off a leg, or whatever. I had had a nightmare before going to Belize (early January) about watching another swimmer get chomped from the bottom up by a shark; it was awful. Anyway I'll never know if that 150-pound monster was pursuing me but I have to guess not. I kept thinking to myself, "The croc can outswim me, yet maybe I'm just avoiding its bites. This is going to be impossible to make it the whole way without getting munched in the belly or leg." When I had swum like 100 meters back to the dock, the rangers were just coming down with poles and rakes and stuff. They must have thought I was drowning in waist-deep water. That pissed me off: I can swim just fine, except when there's a CROCODILE BITING ME! "¡Cocodrilo!" I screamed. I was losing some blood in the water and I thought also my tone should have made it obvious what kind of problem I was having. ((NB: I'm not actually mad now at the guardianes, I was just reacting rudely in a high-stress situation.)) I made it to the dock – "just a few steps up the ladder and I'm safe" – and one of the rangers asked me, "What's wrong?" I turned my head so he could see the left and I heard a gasp and exclamation using a tone of voice I have NEVER heard in my life before. I think he said Híjole or Madre de Dios or something fairly common, but then everyone else chimed in with expressions that tingled me with their intensity. I climbed up the dock's ladder and walked back toward land. I knew I was safe. DENOUEMENT As they took me by the elbows and helped me up the stairs toward the cabaña, I started cursing that crocodile. What an incompetent fool! Couldn't even kill a soft, squishy Waggoner. Now I would have to go through several hours of pain and ... maybe be disfigured? Lose hearing? I wondered if its teeth had pierced my brain. They walked me up the hill and I started to feel light-headed. I spoke v-e-r-y—s-l-o-w-l-y, f-a-v-o-r—q-u-e—ll-a-m-a-r—u-n—t-a-x-i and a-n-a-s-t-a-s-i-a. They sat me down and offered me a T-shirt to wrap up the blood. It was mine and—why did this occur to me?—I asked them to get me another playera because I only had two. This definitively proves that I am the cheapest person on Earth. Seated and safe, I used some English curse-words on the evitado crocodile and then tried translating them into Spanish for the sake of my audience. Bloody fool, cabrón, etc. Then returned to asking when the taxi would arrive and please ask the doctors to knock me out ASAP. I was afraid of the operating table.
After like five or ten minutes the taxi still hadn't come (Sayaxché is like 2 km away). Meanwhile the rangers got their truck started and I hobbled over and in. I wanted to lie down in the backseat but thought it was a bad idea. The two rangers with me supported me so well walking into the hospital, I felt like I could have slumped entirely and their arms wouldn't have dropped at all. ¡Emergencia! they shouted. Now this is getting kind of cool, I thought. But I was still worried about stitches. When I lay on the table everybody started making a fuss over me. Croc attacks are very rare here. As in, nobody has seen one, or at least not the living remnant of one, in memory. Crocodylus moreletti is supposed to be timid. Virgil Stoltzfus (who enters the story later) routinely tries to chase them with tourists and they always run away. Maybe this specimen confused me with a turtle, dog, or other more edible pet? Anyway, the enfermeras told me I couldn't get general anesthesia since the wounds were localized. The Cuban doc on trauma watch, Bárbaro Albuerne, said that the wounds were only superficial. So here is some irony for you. The most painful part of the croc attack was getting poked with the anesthetic juice. Having my scalp sewn back together felt kind of cool. And the doc reassured me that I wasn't going to lose hearing or brain function, wasn't even losing that much blood. So I chilled out and started cracking jokes. E.g., "You should see the other guy", how the crocodile was incompetent, or just little performance pieces about how I was swimming, tranquilo, tranquilo, relajando, qué bonito, ¡AAAGH! The nurses also joked about how, since I was swimming nude, the croc must have been a female and just developed a bit of a crush. Lucky for me sexy translates the same in English and Castellano. I also made sure to thank the doc and nurses profusely. Yes, I am an ambassador of Midwestern politeness. I also named the croc Sorpresa, Spanish for surprise, as in, "Surprise! I mauled you." Towards the end of the operation an American couple came in to offer me support. The husband, Virgil Stoltzfus, grew up as a missionary doctor's son, flying light planes with trauma patients to hospitals and sometimes putting the plane on auto-pilot to tend to them in the air. In later conversations with him I heard some crazy, crazy, crazy stories. You think a croc attack is bad, think again. Human attacks are much worse. One of his more famous tribulations is documented in a 1980's Reader's Digest. Anyway did you notice something about his name? Yes, his family is from Lancaster, PA, his wife went to Octorara, his parents were Amish and turned Mennonite before coming to Guatemala, and Mennonites who went to LMHS took up arms and helped the guerillas in the 80's. Did you know church fathers flew around the world meeting with communist leaders back then? Or that they called Fidel Castro the world's leading Bible theologian, and Saddam Hussein a brother? This is too much for an email, I think he's writing a book about it all. Anyway, Virgil´s wife Dara took some photos and put them on Facebook, at my request. Bárbaro finished suturing me, we all had some more laughs, and I went merrily off to shower the blood away. I couldn't think of what to sing in the shower, tried a few Cash or Jens Lekman tunes and then I just started making up a song about the crocodile, to the tune of "On the Road Again": Oh co-co-dril-io Usted me mor-dio Oh co-co-dril-io Pero te qui-to and etc. AFTERMATH Thereafter I spent Thursday night, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday in Hospital Sayaxché. Lots of visitors, I got out for walks and did a lot of T'ai Chi. Watched some more beautiful sunsets. They loaded me up with antibiotics (Zafroxin 2g) and stuck needles in my butt every 12 hours as some sort of general anesthetic (can't find the drug name ... or the lyrics to that song I wrote! Blast.). I told everyone that I don't believe in vergüenza, the croc was just being a croc, we don't need to kill it. Virgil called a croc expert in Australia and he confirmed that the beast probably just confused me for a mascota or some other normal type of food, then let me go once I tasted different and writhed too much. The following Monday, Virgil and Dara took me into their home for several days, introducing me to their kids: Casey, 21 Sean, 16 Josiah, 14 Allison, 12 Josh, 8 Evelyn, 5 Cita, 3 Victoria, 1 (Yes, it is a lively house!) With them I was pampered, enjoyed adult conversation about Guatemaltecan culture and other things, and played hide-and-go-seek, jumped on the trampoline, and played on the swingset with the little ones. Kids are awesome, they recognize what's actually cool in the world. These kids too have an inspiring way of interacting with each other, something that I guess could only come about in a large family like theirs. One final historita: when I was asked for my nombre, apellidos, profesión (empresario y catedrático les dije, didn't mention Blackwater Capital), and religión, I got a baffled response to the answer ningún and the clarification ateismo. You mean you're not Catholic, not Evangelical, not ...? No, nothing. The next group of people that asked, some truckers who gave me a ride a week later from Cruce del Pato to Chisec, asked directly if I believe in God. These startled, fearful responses demonstrate that people can't be meeting many atheists—although the guerilla leaders were certainly atheist communists. Segue to my last point,
CATHARSIS You would think that a close brush with death would give one a new lease on life or at least some different perspective. Really though that's asking too much for a 30-second transaction of extreme violence. I don't have any different goals or fears than I already did. (Used to be scared of crocodiles; still scared of crocodiles.) Nor has my perspective on death or life changed. Amidst the frequent expressions of "Thanks be to God for saving you" & variants, I keep thinking that I haven't avoided death, only delayed it. I will be looking down that black hole again in a finite time. Of course other typical irreligious responses come to mind as well, and while I don't point out that those who bless me are implicitly cursing the little children and mothers who are all-the-way killed by crocodiles, I do say that while God may have blessed me with saving my life, he obviously wasn't that jazzed or he wouldn't have sent a dinosaur to eat me in the first place. One guy today said it was a test and I thought of the book of Job. Here is the more unusual part of my response to being eaten alive. I'm pretty pleased that I would have died doing something beautiful, and I think it was logical to be more scared of losing a leg than of dying. (Virgil tells me he said stuff like this before he was married, too—and I agree that the calculation totally changes if you have dependents.) Any useful perspective I have has come from thinking over long periods of time, from reading and talking; nothing miraculous took place out there in the laguna. That said I do have a few thoughts to share; nothing that came about while wrestling a gator but since the world seems to be my stage at this moment so: In the picture of the hospital you can see one of my bedmates' family gathered around him. They speak Kek'chi' among themselves and Castellano to me. This poor guy was coughing up blood for 2 months before he actually came to the hospital because he didn't want to take off work. Another guy, an illiterate corn harvester, had a hurt knee and I think had seen terrible things in the civil war. As I said, a croc bite isn't that bad. When I walk out of the hospital I get to go back to making $20 an hour teaching math in a country with hot water, wood floors, and no civil war. Not so for my bedmates. They make Q50 a day (roughly $8), waking up before the sun and splitting that money among 6+ kids. Numerous people in the hospital and everywhere else ask me if I am taking anyone back with me from Guatemala to the USA. In crossing the frontera, Guatemaltecans not only pay many months' worth of salary to a coyote, they also walk 20 days in the desert with 2 gallons of water. I learned from Virgilio that border-patrol are also much more benign than they would seem from reading the papers (patrols drop water and food on crossing illegals and only apprehend suspected terrorists or to fulfil a fairly low quota). Of course working conditions for an illegal alien in the US can't be guaranteed of good quality either, the risk of jail, yadda-yadda. All I should really say is that this issue has many facets to it but regardless of all of the politics, Guatemaltecans risk a LOT to achieve a standard of living well below the American poverty line (which I live comfortably below, by the way). Saul Bellow wrote in Humboldt's Gift about trials of the soul that we face in our land of plenitude. What he said is quite right, American struggles are quite different from developing-country struggles. In fact they must be unique to this period of human history since we are the richest society that has ever been. Maybe harvesting corn long and hard improves the soul, I don't know. I can say for certain that we the wealthy have plenty of opportunity to steep the spirit in good things—dancing, evening walks, good talks, good food, etc. To say nothing of doing things that help others or pleasure in work. |
