As I fell, I heard my leg snap beneath me, and the sound of myself screaming.
Since Greenland achieved self-rule in 2009, one of the few areas remaining under Danish jurisdiction is the military – Arctic Command, responsible for search and rescue operations, amongst other things. Arctic Command has a helicopter on permanent lease from Air Greenland, assigned at all times for search and rescue, funded by the Danish state. Meanwhile, medevac is the responsibility of the hospital services, facilitated by the police and funded by the Government of Greenland. See a problem yet? Both the hospital service and Arctic Command do amazing jobs in an enormous jurisdiction. But there is a hole in the middle – one that I fell into.
I was on geological field work for the government, in mountains near the town of Maniitsoq on the west coast. A beautiful still, blue-sky day. As I walked toward a rocky outcrop, I slipped on the gravelly surface of a smooth rock, my foot twisting suddenly away from me. When I dared look, hoping it wasn’t as bad as it seemed, I saw my foot at ninety degrees to its proper position. It wasn’t good.
After calling for help by radio and satellite phone, relaying my position, I made a calculation of how long I should expect to wait for a helicopter, knowing there was no way I could make it, help or not, over the two kilometres of steep, bouldery ground to the fjord and back to our ship. I was ten minutes flight time from the nearest helicopter – at a nearby exploration camp – and fifty five minutes from Arctic Command’s dedicated search and rescue machine. Accounting for logistical arrangements, I estimated two hours and made a mental plan for tackling the pain, ten minutes at a time.
Meanwhile in Nuuk, my husband was on the phone to the police, my work, the hospital, and Air Greenland. The first thing Air Greenland told him was that he should expect delays in the rescue because there would be an argument over who would pay. Why? Because there is always an argument over who will pay. In my case, after the police initiated the emergency response, Arctic Command and the hospital argued for two and a half hours over whether it should be classified as a medevac – because my position was known – or a search and rescue – because I was not in a town. The answer would determine who was responsible for the rescue.
Six hours later, when the helicopter arrived, the cold shadow of the mountain was creeping over me. Later, in the emergency ward, the doctor preparing to pull my foot back into the correct position was visibly angry. Angry because the rescue took so long and angry because no doctor was sent to reposition my foot in the field. The delay meant increased risk of permanent circulatory and nerve damage.
When I later approached both Arctic Command and the police, both knew the problem before I explained it. It’s a hole in the system that everyone knows about, but which noone is fixing. It doesn’t seem like it after eighteen months and two unsuccessful operations, but I was relatively lucky. The unlucky ones will die waiting.
