German tourist: I’d do it again

AS A biologist, German tourist Ulrike Frenking has a great love for all lifeforms, so it was no surprise that she would gravitate to the caves of Mt Tamana, in East Trinidad, which are inhabited by millions of bats.

Last Monday Frenking, along with her son Tobias and husband Heribert, were part of a small group that went to the caves, from which clouds of bats emerge at dusk. It was around 7.30 pm when tragedy struck. Frenking fell 25 feet down the bat cave and broke her right leg.

Recalling what happened before she fell, Frenking said yesterday, “It was very interesting for me. It was a marvellous experience. There were thousands of bats. I remember there was an Englishman taking photos so I squatted down next to him and we were talking. Then after about 20 minutes or so we decided we were ready to leave.

“I stood up, and that is all I remember.” Frenking, 65, was sitting yesterday in the gallery of her son’s apartment in St Joseph, one heavily-bandaged, injured leg propped up on a small table.

“I don’t remember feeling faint or dizzy, I don’t remember falling. I may have been exhausted because we had done other activities throughout the day, and as you can see, I am not young. Perhaps I got up too fast and lost my balance, I don’t know, I can’t recall. The last thing I remember was getting up to get a better look inside the cave to see the bats.”

Tobias said there also a very strong ammonia odour from the bats’ urine. Her family believed she may have blacked out before she hit the caves’ rocky floor, and that may have been a blessing in disguise. Tobias said if she had been conscious she might have tried to brace herself against the impact and could been even more badly injured.

In addition to a broken femur, Frenking also has a badly bruised shoulder. Most of the right side of her body bore bluish-purplish bruises from when she fell on the rocks below. Her right leg was still swollen.

However, that did not not daunt Frenking’s love for exploring nature. Despite her harrowing ordeal and the pain she has to endure for the next few weeks, she said she would do it all again.

Doctors have given Frenking three weeks before she can put any pressure on her leg and another three months before she can walk properly. Before they inserted three titanium pins in her leg, doctors had to remove several pieces of bone that had shattered in the break, because of the risk of infection. However, they left a few pieces in to help with the healing process. She has already started physiotherapy to strengthen her leg