Concussion

What Happens When Two Adventure Professionals Go Into the Bush Completely Unprepared

But before I begin the story of how I came to have concussion at the bottom of a waterfall with no drinking water and no mobile phone signal, I need to explain what my mother is like.

My mother is the ultimate adventure woman. She specializes in writing bushwalking guides and has a reputation for taking her friends and family on death-defying adventures when they thought they were in for a leisurely stroll to the lookout. She’s one of those hippie-slash-corporate-professional blends that came out of the sixties. Heart of gold, nerves of steel. Up for anything at any time.

We needed to double-check the ins and outs of a particular bushwalk in the Blue Mountains for the latest edition of her Blue Mountains bushwalking guide. ‘This one is easy as pie,’ my mother promised. ‘Won’t take more than hour, there and back.’

Now don’t get me wrong, the walk itself was beautifully written up and perfectly safe. My mother has a rather valid fear of some tourist found dead somewhere in the Blue Mountains clutching a copy of one of her books.

It’s the stuff that isn’t published that gets her a reputation for being a little dangerous. It’s the sidetracks and bush-bashes she insists we have to explore, the waterfalls she wants to climb, the small cliffs she wants to abseil down.

So, we went on a walk down to waterfall, exploring plenty of little waterholes and bush-tracks on the way. We were having quite a nice time, I must admit. I was telling her all about SureAqua, explaining how it works and why she should take a SureAquaBottle out with her on her adventures. Ironically, we didn’t have a SureAquaBottle with us. We didn’t have any water at all.

On our way back from one particular bush-bashing, bank-scaling, river-wading adventure away from the path we came across a rather precarious creek crossing at the bottom of a waterfall. The last thing I remember was trying to balance on a moss-covered rock and take a photo.

Then I slipped. I hit my head on a rock. I passed out.  

My mother freaked out and tried to get back to me so quickly that she fell and hurt herself too. There we were, the adventure professionals, lying rather pathetically in the water. One concussed and the other one holding her elbow and her knee and wailing in pain. It would’ve been a sight to see.

When my mother finally managed to get up and fish me out of the water, I perched on a rock, a little dazed, but seemingly fine.

‘Did I fall?’ I mumbled.

Instantly, the adventure professional in her kicked in. She explained to me what had happened.

Worried I might have concussion, she asked me how old I was, told me to count to ten and asked me for my address.

‘Which address?’ I asked suspiciously, as I currently live in two different houses.

‘Your New Canterbury Rd address’, she replied impatiently, simply wanting to know if I had lost my marbles or not.

‘Well you just told me!’ I laughed. Even though she’d just explained the situation to me, I’d already forgotten that I’d fallen.  I thought these simple questions were completely inane. My mother has finally lost it, I concluded.

‘Did I fall?’ I asked her again. I looked around, bewildered.

‘Where the hell are we?’ I added.

Patiently, she explained what had happened for the second time.

My mother considered her options. We didn’t have any mobile phone signal, so she couldn’t call anyone for help. She couldn’t leave me there to go to get help either, because she knew I’d quickly forget everything and freak out.

It would have been good to rehydrate, as it’s good to give anyone with concussion a cold drink of water. However, we didn’t have any water with us and the water from the stream wasn’t safe to drink.

So, we had no choice. We just had to walk up the hill.

‘Did I fall?’ I asked her.

I asked her that same question more than thirty times.

When we got to the top, my mother called a friend who is part of the NSW Ambulance Service. I heard her saying that I kept asked whether or not I’d fallen and her friend replying that I had mild concussion.

‘That’s funny’, I thought. ‘I must have had a fall.’

Although still a bit baffled, the next morning I was virtually back to normal. The story has been added to the scores of tales about my mother taking people off to do crazy things in the bush. Even now, I don’t have any recollection of falling.

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For the first time in weeks, I went on a walk with her again a few days ago. She had regained m trust to some extent.

It wasn’t an easy walk, I’ll be honest. It was bucketing with rain the entire time. And despite my reservations, we ended up exploring easily half a dozen sidetracks and bush-bashing through course prickly bush on the side of sodden banks. But we had a SureAquaBottle with us, and I every time I fell I managed to avoid hitting my head, so we were fine.