This summer has seen more than one Croatian medical emergency
Here I am, back after my fortnight in Croatia, where I ended up in A&E. Before you inquire, no, I wasn’t plucked from the Adriatic by a combination of the coastguard, civilian rescue vessels and PC-9 aircraft.
Unlike yoga-toned Kay Longstaff, I don’t have the core muscles of a dolphin – or I wouldn’t have done my back in.
No other phrase for it. Sounds mundane. Hurt like bejaysus; not least because I am 20 years too young for a comedy injury sustained by (wait for it) – bending over to pick up a Dan Brown novel.
In my defence, it had been gifted to us, along with a Lee Child thriller and a padded mat (for stony Croatian beaches) by a lovely British family who exited the apartment block just as we arrived.
I was gutted. Not by the books – I shamelessly devoured both in all their heroic absurdity – but by their departure, as they would have been ideal candidates for a holiday friendship fling.
You know, those giddily intense fraternisations, fuelled by local wine, flirtation and smiling barefaced fibs that you’ll stay in touch via the kids.
Anyway, they left, I reached
for Brown’s 2017 novel Origin, a pacy peroration about creationism and destiny and that was it; I collapsed, howling in agony. Unable to move, my immediate destiny was clear: call my high street travel insurance helpline. Which was beyond useless. It turns out that having emailed me in May to assure me my family cover was going to renew automatically, it didn’t. Thanks, Debenhams.
So, unwittingly uninsured and my European Health Insurance Card being quite literally still in the post back in the UK, my husband drove me yelping and weeping to hospital on the Dalmatian island of Brac.
The staff were brilliant. I was gently lowered into a wheelchair and after a swift credit card payment came a cocktail of three lovely injections and instructions to return twice more on subsequent days.
Day two I arrived limping and leaning on my husband. By day three I strolled in under my own steam.
The final bill came to 44 kuna (£53) – not bad compared to the estimated £470,000 that Longstaff cost the cruise company in delays.
Like everyone else, I am left guessing as to what really happened in that peculiar story. I’ll have to leave that particular enigma to Dan Brown.