Help for Hollis
That blonde girl is Hollis Hawthorne. She was on holiday in India when she was in a motorcycle accident, and she's now in a coma. Her friends and family are asking for donations to be able to fly her back to San Francisco for the vital and urgent medical attention she needs. If you can spare some cash, there's a paypal button here at their blog.
Her last email:
I am currently rockin it in a city south of Chennai called Mallapuram. The journey so far has been filled with shock and awe (heh heh) and people in india are mad crazy drivers. Even on bicycles...The bikes here are insane as well...So many people have gigantic trikes that have double frames in the front and huge beds in the back, vice versa, and haul the craziest odd shaped objects, like huge drums of water or manuer, down the road amongst cars, motorized rickshaws, and motorbikes with the most awesome horns you ever heard...(There will be picures to come!)
I had my first motorcycle lesson today and didn't crash!!! Riding a bicycle has definitely helped my skillz and don't worry JB, I am wearing a full faced helmet and totally playing it safe... Everyone here is super intense...The land is amazing and beautiful. Animals roam the streets wild and freely. There are dogs, cows, frogs, geckos, chickens, rosters, rats, cats, bats, and monkeys everywhere...and sometimes they come to visit in your hotel room.
Today visited the five Rathas some of the oldest and most symbolic of rock sculptures in all of India. Breathtaking. Tomorrow I have some more time to practice on the motorcycle and then to the Shore temple. Then we leave the next day for Pondicherri, about 34km south of here. I will be driving myself and my stull. Can't say I'm not nervous, but it will be fine.
And then the bad news from her friend:
my sweetheart Hollis, whom some of you know, from San Francisco was in a motorcycle accident here in the south of India. She has recieved a severe injury to her brain stem and is in a coma. She was wearing a helmet but a sort of freak occurrence put a motorcycle handle bar through the wind visor of the eyes of her helmet. she has a big print mark from the end of the handlebar on her temple and her ear was torn in half and she was immediately unconscious and bleeding from the mouth, nose and ears. I am trying to write this all down as factually as possible even though i am in tears as i write. i then did CPR, which you should all learn, on her for the next half hour consistently as she could not breath on her own. covered in and spitting out her blood in between breaths all of the people involved in the accident fled the scene. I was stranded with someone completely unconscious in the middle of a two lane bridge outside of Chidambaram, Tamil Nadu and finally a van of German tourist pulled over and we put her in the passenger seat and I continued CPR. Three 'hospitals' later she was in the care she is in now. She is stable yet unresponsive beyond "involuntary movement".
As someone who's travelled and probably taken a few too many risks, this really makes me sad as hell. That could be me, that could be any number of the amazing people I've met travelling. I don't know the girl but I can't help but feel like we should do something to help. I know there's thousands of good causes out there vying for your money, but if you can spare just a bit, I reckon it would be appreciated beyond belief.