Sandy Crest Medical Centre, Holetown

Very fortunately, our hosts P. and D.H. arrived at Gibbs Beach in their car just moments after the Good Hubby had had his accident. They drove us to the Sandy Crest Medical Centre in Holetown.

I can't say enough good things about the treatment that the GH got there. The attending physician, Dr Trudy Weeks, found that the force of the wave in dragging his chin along the bottom had opened up a deep laceration inside his mouth, essentially ripping the flesh away from his jawbone. The laceration was full of sand.

His right eye was similarly rather sandy, so the first task was to irrigate this eye and clean it out as much as possible. Miraculously, although it was already clear he would have a huge shiner, his vision was unaffected.

Also miraculously, he had all his teeth, so the main task was to sew the hole in his chin back together again, after all the sand was cleaned out (she did this by poking her finger in the hole repeatedly!) I assisted in the suturing by holding his bottom lip open so that Dr Weeks could see what she was doing. So I'm afraid I've now seen my husband's jawbone.

There was very little tissue left on the bone, so Dr Weeks had a difficult time trying to attach the other side of the laceration back to the gum. But she was very patient and also quite deft with her hands. It took about an hour for her to put all the sutures in and to close up the hole.

She then ordered x-rays as she was convinced that the GH had broken his orbital bone. Luckily this was not the case, but I was rather impressed by how modern the x-ray facilities at Sandy Crest were (my father is a retired radiologist so I have a faint interest in these things).

I was most impressed by how kind and cheerful everybody was. In many countries that are as touristed as Barbados, the prevailing attitude might be one of impatience or disdain for a tourist that had got himself into trouble this way, but both the nurse and Dr Weeks were extremely sympathetic and unrushed in attending to us.

In the reception area of Sandy Crest, there is a framed photo and letter from Tony and Cherie Blair, thanking the staff of the centre for their kind treatment. Not a big fan myself, but I think I can say we couldn't have been treated any better if we had been celebrity politicians!