In 1999 my daughter, Anna, went as Chief Mountain Leader on an expedition to Kyrgyzstan with the British Schools Exploring Society (B.S.E.S.). She and Emma, another leader, went ahead of the main party to reconnoitre in the Tien Shan Mountains.
Kyrgyzstan, a former Soviet State, hadn't long been opened up to Westerners and the Tien Shan region was as yet mainly unexplored. Anna and Emma made an ascent of a hitherto unclimbed peak and named it Emanna.
At home I had fun trying to locate in my out-of-date atlas the country and the towns and cities mentioned by Anna. Sarah from the B.S.E.S. office told me that Kirgizskaya, Frunze, Alma Ata and Narynkol were the former names in the USSR of Kyrgyzstan, Bishkek, Almaty and Karakol in the present Russian Federation.
The main body of the expedition followed a few days after Anna and Emma. By Saturday, July 24, they had set up Base Camp from where the various specialist groups did their mountain-training with Chris, the other mountain-leader, and Anna, before setting out on their specialist projects. I kept track of their progress by phoning the London office at intervals.
Eventually, Anna and her group were on their way across a glacier heading back towards Base Camp. Jon, the Director, was to fly out to be with them during their final week of celebrations and Civic receptions.
I sent him a letter to take out to Anna. I was expecting her home by the end of August to collect her car and belongings before moving to London to start a new job on September 1. I had seen her off on a Flightlink coach from Wolverhampton to Heathrow on July 14, and she had her return ticket to Wolverhampton, where I looked forward to meeting her again on August 31.
This wasn't to be, for on August 24, I received an early phone call from Kyrgyzstan. It was Clare, a student leader on the Expedition, telling me that Anna had had an operation for appendicitis and was already in the air in a Swiss Air Ambulance on her way to Birmingham, where an ambulance would be waiting to take her to Stafford Hospital. They hoped to reach Stafford by early afternoon.
This was the first of a series of phone calls, from Michael, the Chief Leader of the Expedition, from Richard, the Expedition Doctor, from Jon and from staff in the London office. Richard prepared me for the fact that Anna was still extremely ill, stressing that she would have died had she not been so fit.
They had wanted to fly her to Singapore, but she asked to be taken to Stafford to save her parents the expense and hassle of travelling to Singapore or London. She had insisted that they didn't tell me until the danger had subsided.
I hardly dare, even now, think of how close to death she was. What if my last image of her was watching the coach drive away as she waved at me till she disappeared from my view?
A phone call from Copenhagen told me the Air Ambulance was refuelling there. Finally, the Swiss Doctor telephoned me from Stafford and said I should go across as soon as possible. Anna was in great pain but the Swiss Medical Team had set up a drip for her and given her the best medical care possible. Apart from Anna, there were two doctors, three nurses, two pilots and an Administrator on board.
Bit by bit over the next few days more details filtered through. I heard, in retrospect, that on Thursday, August 19, Anna's group had been halfway across the glacier when she became extremely ill. She thought she had the same bug as two of the Young Expeditioners (Y.Es) but, as leader, she felt she had to keep going. This was typical of her. On the 20th she was writhing in agony and unable to move so they had to bivouac there on the glacier.
That night it became obvious that she was dangerously ill so next morning at 6am Fareeda, their Kyrgi interpreter, and Alan, another leader, went down the valley to radio the helicopter station. God was truly on their side, as Michael told me later, because more often than not radio contact was impossible.
A helicopter set out at once. The Y.Es cleared a landing-zone and one of them, Morgan, stood with his arms outstretched waving his T-shirt to guide the pilot down. I heard this later from Morgan's Mum and from Morgan himself.
What a splendid bunch of youngsters those Y.Es were! They played a real part in saving my daughter's life.
They carried Anna on to the helicopter and Clare, Fareeda and Simon, a Y.E. who had been struggling on with injured knees, accompanied her to Karakol. A taxi took them to the hospital and a diagnosis was made within 10 minutes. Her appendix had ruptured 30 hours earlier and an immediate operation was vital, for gangrene had already set in.
The hospital was stark. There were no anaesthetics, no bed linen, no hot water, no morphine, no antibiotics. Anna was stripped naked and tied down to a wooden board. She could see someone sharpening knives in the corner and overhead, only half of the spotlights were working.
Someone had gone into the city to search for anaesthetics. Anna feared they might not find any, but luckily they did so she was put to sleep. Luckily, too, her operation by a woman surgeon was at the start of the surgeon's three-day continuous shift and not at the end.
Russian doctors and surgeons work extremely long hours for little pay, but what a brilliant surgeon that woman was in spite of working under such appalling conditions! It makes me wonder why so many are knocking our NHS.
Neither morphine nor antibiotics could be found in the city. Surgical gloves were used as drain tubes, and bandages were bloodstained from previous use. Richard flew in next day and brought the Expedition medical kit with him. He started Anna on antibiotics, although they were a type intended only for minor conditions.
He took over responsibility for her post-operative care. He knew how urgent it was to get her to a well-equipped hospital, but the arrangements to fly her out took three days. The Air Ambulance could fly to Bishkek, but not to Karakol.
It wasn't until Tuesday that a 737 type of plane of Russian design, with seats removed so that Anna could be laid on the floor, arrived in Karakol to fly her to the Air Ambulance in Bishkek. There had been panic when Anna's heart went berserk and her body went into convulsions. Everyone thought it was the end.
When Anna had woken up after her operation, she could see Fareeda, Simon and Clare looking in at her through the window. She was screaming to them to get her unbound and when they finally persuaded the nurses to untie her she ripped out all her tubes. She must have been delirious.
That experience was probably the most terrifying of her life. It would have been as gruesome as a Frankenstein film. I know she still has nightmares about it as I do, but I didn't know anything about it till later when each of the players in the drama told me their side of the story.
Anna's homecoming was so unlike how I had imagined it would be. When I first saw her in Stafford, she was still filthy from the weeks in the mountains! She spent 12 days in her home hospital and during that time I realised how many friends she has.
My phone was forever ringing, and her room in hospital was full of flowers and cards. People were calling to see her, Simon among them. Yet through all this intense activity I realised that her life was still hanging by a thread.
It was one of the periods in my life when I felt I was living in an unreal world, being unable to think clearly, immobilised as if caught in a web. I felt like a plaything of the gods being tossed about at their will. It brought home to me the truth of the words in the Book of Common Prayer: "In the midst of life we are in death."
I thank God for Mountain Rescue Helicopters and Air Ambulances and dedicated surgeons. Five months ago I met the Kyrgi official who had made the arrangements to fly Anna home and he told me that before he left for London he met the lady surgeon and she asked him if he knew how Anna had fared since returning to Britain.
I asked him to thank her for saving my daughter's life. To Anna I would say: "You practised stoicism that time beyond the limits of prudence. Please don't let yourself get that close to death again."