DOCTOR DUNKIN IN NICARAGUA!

Nicaragua Duck Hunt

January 22-25, 2012

 

COUNTRY OF NICARAGUA

Nicaragua duck hunt and a new name for Jim Brown who we now refer to as "Pecker-head".  It's funny now, but wasn't, when a near true life tragedy was in the making.  We almost orchestrated a new topic for the television series (1000 Ways to Die). 

At 4:00 A.M., we step aboard an air boat on the edge of a swamp in Nicaragua.  The sky is crystal clear and the stars are brilliant beyond description.  4 hunters, 3 crewmen.  Kirk Trasclair, Gary Evans and yours truly on the front bench followed by Jim Brown and Doug Cronk on the second row of seats and a foot or so higher.

The air boat slowly, because of the load, picked up speed as we surfed over the grass covered   water.  We are following a well defined trail through the grass and reeds smoothed by the many trips the boat had previously made.    Through 10 foot high patches of reeds and an occasional white flag on a 20 foot pole helped us navigate through the unbelievable beautiful swamp. 

A bank of spot lights attached to the boat, gave us a brilliant view and performance of birds of all colors and sizes as they flew from the approaching noise of the air boat.  A mile or so into the swamp we approached a small clump of grass on the edge of the trail that hadn't been smoothed out by previous trips.  We were just off the main trail and we were going to pass right over it when all a sudden a heron frantically catapulted from its hiding spot in the grass.   TIGER HERON In the air stream created by the speed of the air boat it was hurled right towards the front seat directly at Kirk that miraculously dodged as the bird passed between him and Gary.  The air stream that the bird was caught in brought it up and right towards Jim's face and again, miraculously, and his fast response, he ducked forward and to the left.  The impact was painful, as Jim later said and he didn't realize the seriousness until he felt the blood running down his throat onto his chest. I had no idea what had happened.  Slowing down  to open a gate on a submerged fence as we had done the morning before the engine was turned off and for a minute or two we set motionlessly in the water.  I was beginning to wonder why we weren’t moving toward the gate.  I finally turned to see what was going on behind me and there was Jim with blood all over his face.  I jumped up and over the seat and right into the middle of the gang looking at his head.  With my small head light I honed on to small hole about the size of a quarter that was oozing a fair amount of blood.  Jim kept saying "it's alright lets go on".  I immediately exercised my authority, predicated on age,  and said “turn this boat around we are going to the hospital"  One hour later in a small medical clinic we were waiting for the Doctor that had been summoned by the nurse on duty.  Trying to check the flow of blood with the small packages of gauze that were the only thing they had to offer.  The Doc. finally showed up and allowed me to step right up next to him with my small light to look into the hole.  I could see something and the first small object that we retrieved was a small piece of hard material, a piece of the bill, We injected a fair amount of pain killer into the area. The doctor then took an instrument from a tray of surgical tools that had been poured from a plastic sack onto a wobbly table next to us. DIAL HOLDING BROKEN OFF HERON BILL He inserted the instrument into the edge of the hole and opened it so we could get a better look inside. He then handed me a surgical pliers and I immediately started groping around in the hole and immediately locked on the object.  He could tell that I had something in the mouth of the pliers and motioned for me to pull it out.  The edge of the bill was totally serrated and deep in the wound adjacent to the skull and I had to pull very hard.   Jim was growling in his throat as the one and a half inch piece, that is pictured, came out. Now visualize, the beak entered Jim’s skull from the front of his face and I pulled it out facing the other direction.  The bird hit him and was thrown over his shoulder thus the bill turned around while it was inside his skin next to the skull and during that violent exercise, broke off.  The inside of the hole was very large from the reversal of the direction of the beak.  JIM BROWN RECUPERATING FROM WOUNDS I poured everything they would give me into the hole and made a final probe with a small instrument and could feel nothing else.  Sewed the wound up with three stitches. The cost was $70.00, so we left a $100.00 bill and headed to the lodge.   .  You can now refer to me as Dr. Dunkin Dial