In an instant, Jennifer’s life was turned upside down—quite literally.
What was meant to be an unforgettable holiday, featuring adventures from Mt. Fuji in Japan to the vibrant islands of the Philippines, took an unexpected turn on February 15. The 32-year-old from Queensland was not prepared for the dramatic event that occurred during a village tour.
Jennifer was enjoying the last leg of a three-day boat expedition around the islands near Coron in Palawan, alongside a small group of fellow travelers.
The group had just returned from a local tour where they played basketball with villagers and immersed themselves in the local customs and traditions.
As Jennifer stepped onto a makeshift platform leading to a bridge that connected the shore to their boat, her laughter quickly transformed into terrified screams as the ground beneath her feet vanished.
Following others in line, the cement blocks and wooden planks she walked on suddenly gave way, collapsing beneath her without warning.
Without warning, Jennifer was thrown into the water below and pinned between large, sharp concrete blocks.
Jennifer was trapped with just part of her face exposed allowing her to continue breathing.
“We had been having the best time,” she said through tears.
“And then all of a sudden … I was just screaming.
“The platform had given way underneath my feet … we heard it crumbling, but couldn’t understand the sound. I saw the person in front of me land in the water, and then another … and before I realized I was trapped under cement in the water.”
Screaming in pain while gasping for air, others on the tour rushed to help free her legs from the rubble, which was pinning her under the water.
Speaking through tears from a hospital bed in Manila, Jennifer said people from the tour desperately worked to dislodge the boulders of concrete.
But as she lay in the brown water gasping for air, she was sure she wouldn’t make it.
“I had to tilt my head back for it to not go in the water and to be able breathe,” she explained.
“Both my legs were trapped … I was just screaming. I was just in survival mode.
“As people around me tried to help, I just could feel it crush me more and more and I literally thought I was dying. It felt like there’d been a bomb … I couldn’t understand what was happening.
“It was like a war zone.”
It took multiple people to pull Jennifer out from under the rubble and to the shore, where it was revealed the extent of her injuries to her lower legs.
A pole had pierced through her leg, resulting in severe damage to her ankle, and as Jennifer explains – the pain felt like she was “losing her legs.”
“I see this pole come out of my leg, and my ankle … the skin is just around my foot,” she said.
“They lifted me into this kayak, and I’m just yelling at them to cover the wound and to stop the bleeding. I could see the muscle in my leg, and all this blood.”
Without any pain relief, Jennifer begged to be taken to the hospital. But because they were on a tiny island, she was instead taken to a small medical centre for treatment.
“I just lay down on the kayak and I put my hat over my head … I just didn’t want to go into shock,” she explained, adding everyone on the tour was “traumatized” but she was the only one to sustain significant injury.
“I was yelling at everyone to put gloves on … I was just freaking out. The room was just filled with all these people speaking this language I couldn’t understand. They put some sort of pill in my mouth, which was an antibiotic. Then that was it, they put me back in the kayak and to a boat that was ready to take me to the hospital.”
Without any pain medication and “bleeding non-stop”, Jennifer boarded the tour boat for a grueling 2.5-hour journey to the closest hospital.
Once she arrived, she was transferred to a van and into what Jennifer described as a small island hospital.
“They looked at my bandages, and then they just wrapped them again with the same stuff that had been on for hours,” she explained, adding they wanted her to get X-rays another 40 minutes away.
Insisting nothing was broken, she was administered a local anesthetic before being stitched up. The medical staff said she’d be fine to walk that day, and even return to work within two weeks.
With her phone completely destroyed by the water, Jennifer was unable to contact family, friends or her insurance company for assistance – meaning the minimal treatment she’d received had to be paid out of her own pocket.
After receiving the treatment and returning to her hostel, friends she’d made on the boat tour came to her aid.
“My leg had a plank of wood bandaged to it … I was just in so much pain,” she explained.
After finally making contact with family and friends who were able to sort her travel insurance from Australia, Jennifer was taken by air ambulance to Manila, where she still remains.
“I’ve only really been given paracetamol,” she explained.
“I’ve needed three surgeries and to clean my wounds, since there was a parasite in my leg from the pole. My right ankle is cracked where all the skin came back, and I am just on antibiotics non-stop to kill this thing [parasite] inside me.”
A GoFundMe page has been started on behalf of Jennifer, who will likely be out of work for many months to come, with significant rehabilitation and continuation of care required.
Jennifer said that while she waits for confirmation on a medical evacuation from Manila back to Brisbane – which she is hopeful will be within the next week – she’s been given the good news that the parasite infection has officially cleared.
