British tourist almost loses foot after being impaled in moped crash
A dream holiday turned into a nightmare after a woman’s foot was impaled in a Bali moped crash.
For many flocking to the Indonesian island of Bali, exploring the lush island on a moped is a must-do – but doing so comes with its risks.
Angel Willows, 28, from Guildford, Surrey, almost lost her foot after crashing her moped in the Indonesian holiday hotspot wearing flip-flops.
The smash left the personal trainer’s bone horrifically exposed and infected after the metal moped side stand impaled her foot.
How the horror unfolded
Angel was riding the moped with her cousin when they hit a pothole.
In a split second, the pair slammed into the concrete road, leaving Angle underneath the weight of the scooter and her cousin on top of her.
The metal bike stand pierced through her left foot and left a deep wound as she didn’t have the protection of shoes.
After an agonising journey to the hospital, her foot was stitched up.
However, Angel claimed her cousin – who is a nurse – had to step in and inform the hospital staff the wound needed washing before the stitches.
She said: ‘I was in shock, I thought I just needed a plaster initially.
‘We went to the closest emergency place and they gave me stitches.
‘It was a bad job.
‘My cousin is a nurse and she was having to give them instructions.
‘When I got to Australia, they told me how bad it was.’
And this is where the grim situation turned even worse.
Angel alleged the stitches were not done properly and her foot continued to bleed heavily – before it began turning yellow.
She said: ‘It just didn’t stop bleeding after they stitched it up – I had to have my foot just over a bucket whilst it filled up with blood.
‘It was turning a horrible colour.’
She then had it redressed by a chemist before her cousin suggested she should get the injuries seen by a doctor back in Australia where they still had days left on their visa after travelling there for 10 months.
Three days after the accident, Angel landed back in Sydney which is located 2,883 miles away from Bali.
Doctors told her the foot was badly infected and that she was ‘lucky that I got there when I did,’ adding that she could have lost it due to poor stitches.
She underwent three wash-out surgeries in a bid to clean the wound while doctors waited to see if it would start to heal.
A month in hospital
But it continued to get worse.
Her skin turned black and yellow, and doctors were forced to remove all the dying skin before removing skin tissue from Angel’s groin in a skin flap surgery.
She explained: ‘So they did the washout three times but as the skin kept dying they told me they’d need to take a chunk from my leg to replace it.
‘They prepared me and said I’d have to look at the open wound and I had to stand under the shower with my bone exposed and wash it out before surgery.
‘It was painful and a bit of a shock but they were injecting me with morphine throughout.
‘Then they marked out where they were going to take the skin from on my groin before putting me to sleep.’
She spent a month in hospital before being discharged to start her recovery in Australia.
After Angel woke up she needed ‘a boot to learn to walk again, which took a couple of months,’ she said.
Now she has vowed to always wear trainers on bikes.
She has dared to ride one since then, but she’s ‘super cautious when riding them now.’
‘If I had trainers on I certainly don’t think it would have been as bad,’ she added.
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