Spinal Injury at Luderitz

Last Saturday one of the Luderitz competitors (Jerome Bila) was seriously injured during competition.

Basil Cambanis has posted some of the details on his site, and he's been visiting Jerome in hospital in Johannesburg each day since the accident.

According to Basil's postings, a description of the incident is as follows "a kiter in front of him crashed and was by the barrier, but their lines were across the trench, so he had nowhere to go. He and his board hit the other kiter's lines, and things went wrong when those lines caught his bar and caused his kite to half loop.
This flung J?r?me about 4 meters into the air before he plummeted back towards the ground.

He had the presence of mind to try and land on the other kite to break his fall, but narrowly missed.

He landed very hard on his back on sand, after which he immediately knew something was wrong."

Apparently they're operating on Jerome today - fingers crossed for him.

Basil's also brought a 3G dongle into the hospital and hooked it up to Jerome's laptop ( 'onya Basil!) so Jerome can access the internet and people can contact him that way; I'd suggest posting to one of the threads on www.gps-kitesurfing.com/default.aspx .

Please bear in mind though that this is serious surgery that Jerome's undergoing, and the thing he'll be needing most of all immediately afterwards is rest.

So if you do send something, please try and keep it brief for the moment; it'll be in the weeks and months afterwards during his rehabilitation that he'll be most needing your support and well wishes.

You can read the update's on Basil's site here: http://www.speedkiting.org/site/ .

There's also been some updates in the "Any news on Jerome?" thread on www.gps-kitesurfing.com/default.aspx .

In the meantime, keep your fingers crossed for Jerome's operation, have fun out there & stay safe.

Cheers.

Crap news I wish him all the best.