Speared by crazy antelope in Africa

A SPEARING in the gut by an antelope, rabies infected dog bites and injuries from monkey bites are among the 18,000 health crises that hit Aussies travelling overseas last year.

More than 4000 tourists ended up in hospital and more than 155 had to be evacuated to Australia.

The most expensive holiday health event cost $1.5 million.

One of the more sensational injuries covered by Allianz Insurance involved a 58-year-old man who had his bladder and colon punctured by an antelope in Zimbabwe.

He was walking through a camp when he startled a nyala antelope. It thrashed its head at him, penetrating his lower abdomen. He had to be evacuated to South Africa where he spent 10 days in hospital.

Allianz’s nursing team arranged flights and accommodation for the patient and his wife as he recovered, before sending him home to Australia on a business class flight. The incident cost $45,000.

The insurer says that Indonesia and Thailand were the most common destinations where travellers needed urgent medical assistance.

The company is one of the only Australian insurers to offer an in-house repatriation service via a team of 26 nurses through its Allianz Global Assistance medical team.

Repatriation nurse Georgie Mewing said caring for a patient on an aircraft was highly stressful because when the human body was in a high altitude the supply of oxygen and other gases in the body could be affected.

Skiing and snowboard injuries where the bones protrude out from the skin were also common, Ms Mewing said. “At Tour de France time there is always a rise in cycling accidents from people following the route,” she said.

Other patients need help after developing the bends while scuba diving and some develop severe altitude sickness from mountain climbing where their brain swells and their lungs stop working.

Wagga Wagga school student Benazir Ali was celebrating the end of her five-year battle with leukaemia when she had to cut a family holiday in the US short last year and was evacuated home with osteomyelitis.

Beni collapsed after arriving in Las Vegas, her legs weren’t working and she needed emergency surgery to flush fluid from her hip joint. Each day hospital staff demanded the family produce a credit card and charged them $12,000 a day for Beni’s care before Allianz took over the bills.

AT TOUR DE FRANCE TIME THERE IS ALWAYS A RISE IN CYCLING ACCIDENTS FROM PEOPLE FOLLOWING THE ROUTE NURSE GEORGIE MEWING