What exactly happened to Wan Ying?
Some of you may be wondering where Wan Ying got her new pair of "shoes" from (as seen in the picture above). Well, we're going to fill you in on the details right here and now! Many of you have heard the about the misadventure - bits and pieces here and there. Here is the full story from various people...
(both were back at Singapore when it happened)
Cai Ping says:
Just when I thought my fried rice food-poisoning incident was dramatic (happened on the day for departure flight; and hence missed the whole trip)... Miss Wan Ying's 2 fractured toes topped the list! Oh and to our Vietnamese friends: If you have not seen me previously in Gia Bac, I'm Cai Ping and reached HCMC only on Tuesday. I met the rest on Thursday! I did not really know what on earth happened till she called me. It's really no wonder we are good friends... weird things do happen to us at the same time, haha! :P I now proclaim ourselves as Miss Food-Poisoning and Miss Fractured-toes! Haha! :P
Wai Fun says:
I thought you guys went to visit some hospital museum!!!
Especially since Wan Ying and Kenneth were smiling so happily in front of the camera! That was until I received Kang Hua's message...
Especially since Wan Ying and Kenneth were smiling so happily in front of the camera! That was until I received Kang Hua's message...
I was packing my stuff when I heard a LOUD crash. When I looked up, I saw that Wan Ying was in a daze for around 30s. She kept staring at her feet and all of us in the room could not help wondering, "Which item dropped out of the cupboard?" It wasn't our items, it wasn't the shelves in the large cupboard. It took Kenneth a few moments to realise that it was the upper left hand cupboard door that dropped!!
Estimated Height = 2.4 metres
Note: Si Hui is standing at a distance away from the wardrobe.
Then, we saw that there was a small mountain ("Redhill") emerging from Wan Ying's right foot! Gosh... only a few minutes had passed and the swelling was so sO SO SERIOUS!!! The rest of us quickly recovered from our shock and were frantically looking for ice to subside her swelling. [Refer to Kang Hua's paragraph.]
Trang, Kang Hua and I went to the clinic opposite the hotel to buy some medicine as it was still opened. We were so surprised when the person in the clinic said "The doctor is not here." I was like "... ....". What's the point of opening the clinic when there was no doctor on duty?
As Wan Ying wanted boiled eggs as well to subside her swelling, I went to inform the receptionist. I was so PISSED off when he told me "Sorry....we don't have any more eggs. I think you have to buy from outside." Oh man, he should have initiated to buy for us since he already knew of Wan Ying's condition. So....we ended up with no eggs at all. And needless to say, I gave a low rating for that hotel's service.
Kenneth recalls:
Very often, events that happened on the spur of the moment tend to go pass in a flash and this was no different. It's only on hind sight that things seem to make sense.
(Read below for Kang Hua's account of the dramatic happenings at the scene of the incident.)
The next day...
After recovering from the shock of the incident, we were strangely cheerful and optimistic the next morning, especially Wan Ying! She was still happily watching TV as though the events of the past night had not happened. The next course of action was to decide how what to do with WY's injury. After calling Harry, we were recommended to send her to the nearest clinic or hospital to get her treated as well as to get a medical report done for the insurance claims. Fortunately for us, there was a rather large and modern looking clinic just opposite our hotel! Yay!
However, things didn't happen as smoothly as we hoped. :( We realised that WY wasn't able to climb the stairs! And she was 6 floors up! Being the only guy there, I guess there wasn't really an option but to piggy-back her down 6 floors...Ok, it wasn't all that tough, thankfully. =P At the lobby, we were greeted with some bad news; the clinic opposite treats only respiratory illnesses! =(( Ahh... So, we all squeezed into a cab and headed to the nearest hospital.
That was the first time I entered a hospital in a foreign land. It was certainly a one-of-a-kind experience. Ahh... It just seemed the entire process was choked full of obstacles! The hospital refused to treat WY because of the amount of paper work required to handle foreign patients. So, off we went to another hospital! Two hospitals in under an hour! Wow... The next one was even larger! By now, we were half starved! =( So, we sent WY off with Hang to be admitted to the hospital (only one person could accompany her at any one time) and headed to get breakfast for the rest.
To ward off the boredom and anxiety of waiting, we headed over to a shopping complex some distance away to do make some quick buys. While we were anxiously waiting for WY to be discharged from the hospital, we got a call from Hang. Horrors of all horrors! She told us that medical bill might go up to as much as 100+ USD! Argh~ I think the 3 of us were frantically doing some mental calculations to check if our combined finances would be able to cover the bill... In the end it turned out to be much lesser than the stated amount; 273000 dong phew~~
The medical report later showed that WY had fractured two of her 2 small toes. After the entire ordeal, WY was still surprisingly in uber high spirits!
Kang Hua recalls:
It all happened so quickly! First, there was a thud, followed by an "Ahh!" from Wan Ying and then a chorus of "What happened?" from all of us both silent and exclaimed aloud. One by one, as we collected our senses, we rushed over to see what happened.
At first, it didn't hit me. (No pun intended.) What was it that made that loud crashing sound? Nothing seemed out of place! That was until I looked up at the empty spot where the top left cupboard door was supposed to be and then it dawned on me. The door actually came off! What probability was there of such an incident occurring and to fall right on Wan Ying's feet as well! The horrors!
In fragments, and altogether weighing about 2kg.
Considering they dropped from height of 2.4m, how many NEWTONS of force was there?
Considering they dropped from height of 2.4m, how many NEWTONS of force was there?
There was a slight frantic in the room as we pondered about what to do next. I think I spent most of the time staring at Wan Ying as her expression changed. It must had been so painful because tears were rolling down her face uncontrollably.
A call to Jun Wei, our Medic Kor Kor, advised us to use ice on the swelling but there was no ice in the fridge! I rushed up to my room quickly, only to find that there wasn't even water in the ice cube box in the first place. The language barrier made it so difficult for us to relay our idea to the receptionist as we tried to ask him for ice! In the end, we decided to try our luck elsewhere and so we rushed over to the clinic opposite to ask for ice only to find that they either 1) did not understand us or 2) really did not have ice in the whole of that huge complex. Knowing that Trang happened to be on her way to see us before she returned to her hometown, I messaged her to ask for some ice as well as we headed off to KFC. However, they were closing soon and did not have ice too! Lady Luck seemed to have lost her shine on us.
Looking annoyed
What continued was a blur as we returned to the room, finding that Wan Ying already had ice on her foot, Trang arriving shortly after with more bags of ice, us heading to the clinic opposite only to realise that there were no doctors on duty and finally me going off on Trang's motorbike in the rain, Trang's poncho over me and none for herself, to look for a pharmacy to find medicine as advised by Si Hui's sister. (We realised later that it was a cream for the eyes though...)
Spot the difference!
In summary, this is an audio version of what happened when it all happened:
Cupboard Door: *crash*
Wan Ying: *Shrieks - Ahhh!*
Si Hui, Kenneth, Kang Hua: *shocked* Huh? What happened?
Si Hui, Kenneth, Kang Hua: *Investigates*
Si Hui, Kenneth, Kang Hua: *Gasp*
The First-hand Experience...
Date: 19th June 2010 (Sat) [our return flight due in 26 hours time]
Time: 8+ pm
Venue: Room 301 (Level 4); Quynh Kim Hotel (Ho Chi Minh City - Vietnam)
1. Opens cupboard door
2. Screams a brief "Ahhh" as I felt something heavy dropped on my right foot.
3. *Counts* 1-2-3-4-5 --- humongous bump on right foot
4. Stares at foot in dismay (most painful feeling, ever!)
5. Froze
6. Frantic filled every corner of the room as everyone else but myself tried to remedy
the situation
7. The whole world suddenly came to be at my command (to reduce the swelling, to
calm me down, to transport me everywhere, to pack my bag, ....)
One word - LUDICROUS! Or in our Singaporean language "SUEYNESS"
Suey - /suuay, suːeɪ/ a. [Hk.; according to Gwee, Mand. 衰 shuāi decline, wane (Chi.–Eng. Dict.)] Unlucky, unfortunate, jinxed. suay-suay.
PS. By the way, I still have no idea whether the left upper cupboard door or the right one fell because I didn't dare to look at it!
What say you, Thuong, Hang, Trang and Cuc? =)
Hope we didn't scare y'all!
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hahaha..somehow I had problems typing the comments..this is my 3rd time typing this now..just wanted to say:
thanks for the detailed recount! finally understood what happened to Wan Ying now. Was quite shocked to hear it from Malik when I met him on Saturday but he dont seem to know much either. =P This is certainly as serious as our dear Cai Ping's food poisoning incident before the trip.
Glad that Wan Ying is now resting well at home. Hope she gets well soon and hope to see everyone soon too!
Cheers,
Cindy