\u201cI\u2019d clocked that there was nowhere to go to my right, and I just thought, \u2018Okay, I\u2019m dead here\u2019.\u201d <\/p>\n
The car which flipped and hit Arrowsmith.<\/p>\n
In a split-second thought, Arrowsmith decided to jump as the car was barrelling towards him; he cleared the vehicle with his body, but it struck his legs, the impact throwing him \u201cthrough the air\u201d.<\/p>\n
After landing a few metres away, Arrowsmith was lying on his back in shock that he had survived. <\/p>\n
\u201cI mentally did a quick check. I started wiggling my feet and my toes and my fingers just to make sure that I wasn\u2019t paralysed.\u201d <\/p>\n
The trio of experienced motorcycle riders, who took annual bike tours together, were close to arriving at their organised off-road trip around northern Vietnam. <\/p>\n
No ambulance would come to their location, so Arrowsmith was taken to an X-Ray centre in the back of a local\u2019s car, with his tour guide. <\/p>\n
After having scans done, local police arrived to test him for drugs and alcohol. <\/p>\n
A sober but in pain Arrowsmith was then put into a taxi, which he thought would take him to hospital. Instead it took him to a police station. <\/p>\n
After several hours of questioning, where a local teacher had to translate the words of \u201cpretty annoyed\u201d officers, it was only after his brother and friend arrived and threatened embassy action that he was able to leave. <\/p>\n
Mark Arrowsmith travelling back to New Zealand after the accident. <\/p>\n
Throughout the questioning, officers were asking Arrowsmith to sign paperwork, which he refused to do as it was all in Vietnamese. <\/p>\n
\u201cI could see that my leg was just ballooning up, you know, huge. And I kept saying to them I need medical aid and they were just going \u2018No we don\u2019t do that\u2019.\u201d <\/p>\n
The first time Arrowsmith received pain relief was when he was admitted to hospital in Hanoi, eight hours after the crash. <\/p>\n
As a police officer for 31 years, Arrowsmith had seen hundreds of crashes and said best practice was to give medical attention as soon as possible. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt had been left for so long, and I wasn\u2019t sure if I was going to lose the leg. But the doctor said, \u2018No, no, any longer than it might have been a problem, but we can save it\u2019.\u201d <\/p>\n
Arrowsmith, who moved to New Zealand from England 21 years ago, broke his left tibia, fibula and kneecap, tore his shoulder and his hip, and severely bruised his ribs. <\/p>\n
The impact was so great that he still has paint from the car on his bike protection gear. <\/p>\n
After 12 days in hospital and an operation on his leg, Arrowsmith was allowed to leave and returned home with his wife, who had flown over. <\/p>\n
Pins were put into Mark Arrowsmith’s knee as part of the surgery he got in Hanoi. <\/p>\n
Specialists in Auckland told him the surgery on his leg went well, and he later got an operation on his damaged shoulder in March this year. <\/p>\n
He is hoping to be cleared to return to work as a passenger train driver in Auckland in a couple of months, nearly a year on from the accident. <\/p>\n
\u201cMy knee and hip will never quite be the same. I can walk around, I can take the dog for a walk, but it aches after that. And then if I get in and out of the car, it seizes up. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt has hindered me quite a lot. But it\u2019s just one of those things, you know, everything can be far worse … I was relieved to be alive and then I was relieved not to be paralysed.\u201d <\/p>\n
The ordeal cost Arrowsmith $38,000, which was all covered by insurance. <\/p>\n
He contacted both the New Zealand and British embassies in Vietnam to request a police apology for his treatment. <\/p>\n
Arrowsmith says he will not be participating in any large bike tours in the future but would commute to work on his motorbike. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI\u2019d clocked that there was nowhere to go to my right, and I just thought, \u2018Okay, I\u2019m dead…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":490311,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[74,68,15408,51,3944,3549,43765,71,25282,104,9933,5158,12638,28369,111,43,139,69,10932,675,19764,8694,26884,25319,2848,6100,210,2317,540,379],"class_list":["post-490310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-after","tag-air","tag-almost","tag-auckland","tag-car","tag-crash","tag-flew","tag-from","tag-fully","tag-injuries","tag-later","tag-man","tag-motorbike","tag-motorcycle","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-officer","tag-police","tag-received","tag-recovered","tag-recovering","tag-retired","tag-severe","tag-still","tag-through","tag-vietnam","tag-where","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=490310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490310\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/490311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=490310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=490310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=490310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}