And Then That Happened, (Part 2: A Shocking Experience!)

It was July 4, the 831th anniversary of the Battle of Hattin.  That was the decisive battle in the hills above the Sea of Galilee between the Crusaders and Saladin.  It was a scorching day, and the Crusaders were cut off from their water supplies.  Saladin ran relays of water up from the Sea.  The Crusader army was destroyed.  Jerusalem fell shortly thereafter, with their castles across the Jordan along the King's Highway including Kerak, Shobek and forts in Petra not far behind.  My July 4 in Petra, I had full canteens and used them, but in 115 degree heat it still was not enough.

After leaving the Treasury, within a hundred meters or so I ran into a couple of camels on the trail.  I stepped off the road to let them by, and on the rocky side I twisted my ankle.  "Oh, that'll hurt in the

Just step off the trail and let them pass

morning!" I said.  Little did I know the damage I'd suffered: six months later, it would be diagnosed properly as a torn Achilles tendon.  Another hundred meters or so, I came to the turnoff to the High Place of Sacrifice.  My ankle hurt, but not too badly.  "If I don't go up there, I'll regret it," I said to myself.  I knew that the next day's plan did not have time for that side trail; it was now or never.  So I started up the stairs.

After climbing a couple hundred feet, watching the valley fall away below me, my ankle hurt worse. I reflected that the newer British built stairs lower down were taller than the more ancient ones.  I was glad when I came to a dozen meters of flat before the next staircase, as it let my foot relax.  But on the climbs, it hurt.  Maybe I should quit? "But if I don't do it, I'll regret it. Besides, I've climbed a fair ways, I don't want to lose the effort."

I ran into an Englishman who was descending.  He assured me that he was only 15 minutes from the top, it ought only take me 20 minutes or so.  (It took more like 45.) My ankle hurt badly, but was functional; it would bear my weight as I stepped up.  So on I went.  Near the top, the trail opened out towards a saddle below the summit, and there was a tiny shelter with a couple of Bedouin girls in the shade.  "It's not far!" they encouraged me.  The trail petered out into a duck route across open sandstone slabs, and then I was atop the summit.

Altar on the summit of the High Place of Sacrifice

You can see for 20 miles in every direction. There is a platform maybe 35' x 20'. On the west side, is an altar, with three steps up to it. There's also some sort of sideboard with steps up it. The altar is about 3' x 6', concave in the top, with a drainhole. The sideboard has a bowl structure, also with a drainhole. Sacrifice was a messy, bloody business.  I'd read all my life about "the Israelites are sacrificing to Baal on the High Places," etc. But to see one, carved out of the bedrock, was astounding. This was probably dedicated to Dushara, the head of the Nabatean pantheon.  It was truly fascinating, and I'm actually about two-thirds glad that I made the climb

But the pain was fierce!  Compare the grimace in my selfie here with the smile from an hour and a half earlier! One of the Bedouin girls came up and talked to me.  She suggested that I go down the back

Atop the High Place. Aaron's tomb on mtn in far distance

way, "Fewer steps," than the way I'd come.  Or I could go across the bluffs to the west and pick up a road to the main entrance, that's how they had to take a woman earlier by truck who had broken her leg. I assured her that I didn't need that.  She was a bit upset that I didn't look at her crafts for sale, but I knew time was of the essence if I was going to get down and out in time.  So started limping down the back stairs.

What she hadn't told me was that there were literally NO other people on that trail. Or that it was on the sunward side of the mountain in the afternoon.  Or that the sand was white and reflected the sun.  Or that there was no shade.  And no breeze.  A genuine furnace.  115 in the shade and no shade.

Once I got to the valley floor, the sand was a bit easier on the pain than the steps.  And there were some neat monuments.  But I hurt too bad to divert the 15' off the trail to go look inside.  I kept pressing down the valley.

There were some goats around.  I could hear a nanny bawling for her kid she couldn't find.  I would know that sound anywhere.  She was running along a ridge across from me. Then I spotted the kid, dead, in a gully below her.  It was very sad.  A ways further on, I came across one of the famous blue Petra lizards alongside the trail.  Also dead.  "That's not a good omen!"

I knew I was hiking too slowly.  I'd stop and drink and then push onward before having to rest again.  I was regretting going down this way, realizing that it would put me at the far end of the city from the entrance.  I decided that when I got to the Basin (Qasr al-Bint), that I would swallow my pride and rent a donkey to take me back to the gate.  Or maybe even splurge for a cart ride!

I came to a major trail junction.  There were two routes to the Basin -- one that followed down the bottom of the wadi and curved around the end of the hill, and another that angled up to a small saddle and then dropped down. The latter was shorter, and so decided to take that path.  The trail had become rocky again and hurt.

At the top of the saddle was a small shade tent.  An old Bedouin woman was sitting at a rickety card table; I staggered over and fell into a metal chair. Shade!  And a place to sit!   I pulled out my canteen and started drinking thirstily.  In broken English, she assured me that the Basin was right down the hill, "Ten minutes."  I thought, "OK, maybe 20, but it'll be OK.  I'll find a donkey....."  I looked over and saw a simple bed in the corner, and wondered if it would be too intrusive if I went and lay down.  I am so tired!

She pulled out a small blue rag, and produced a small coin.  I told her that I wasn't interested, but took and looked at it anyway.  A Roman denarius, likely fake.  I handed it back, and she gave me another.  Another denarius, it was better quality, actually rather pretty, though still likely counterfeit.

I thanked her and handed it back, when POW!  My implanted cardiac defibrillator (ICD) fired.  I jerked back, she leapt up frightened -- our fingers had almost been touching as I handed the coin to her and it fired. "It's OK, it's OK, I cried, out... I have a defibrillator..." I spoke fast and fearful.  POW!  Another shock.  I kept talking, trying to explain, pulling down the collar of my shirt and showed her the scar from the implant.  POW!  Another shock.  POW!  Yet again.  I'm pouring water over my head,  and down my chest -- heat is one of the precipitating factors for these events, and I'm trying to cool myself off.

She is on the her phone.  "I'll call the doctor!" I tell her, "OK".  After just one shock, I might have been able to walk to the Basin after resting a bit  Two is iffy, my legs become jelly, and it was four or five which usually leaves me curled up on the floor in the fetal position.  I've had a few shocks on many occasions, once as many as a dozen.  I'd stayed in the chair, pouring water down my head and chest which is evaporating on contact.  She's on the phone -- to the rangers, to the police, to all her sisters, call after call.  Of course, she's speaking Arabic, though I do at one point hear her say "ICD" so I realize she's at least quoting me or maybe even understands the situation.

People ask me what an ICD shock feels like.  I've always said that it's like getting kicked in the chest by a mule.  Not that I've ever experienced that!  But it is a very physical punch, with a bit of electric fence jolt. I recoil from the shock as if sucker punched, flailing my arms back.  It is so deep in the body that it isn't quite pain, though it is uncomfortable.  And a few shocks do start hurting, as all the chest muscles start complaining about being cramped and released in a few milliseconds.   I'll feel a dull ache afterwards in my chest, like the residual after a bad coughing fit.  If I'm standing up, a shock will take my knees out and I'll fall.  I've learned that if I think I'm about to get shocked, to kneel down on the floor so I don't have so far to go.  Sometimes I can feel the precipitating arrhythmia, kneel and steel myself for a shock, though most often the first shock will take me by surprise.  And it is always accompanied by a mixture of panic and fear.  Which isn't great, because the last thing I need at that moment is an adrenaline dump -- adrenaline is one of the chief causes for the whole thing.  You know, like hiking down a mountain in 115 degree heat with a screaming hurting ankle.

After about 20 minute, an ambulance arrives.  The zaps have stopped, but I'm pretty much in shock.  I explain what happened to the attendants, and agree to go to the hospital with them.  A vehicle trumps a potential donkey!  I'm shaky as they help me walk to the vehicle, but refuse the stretcher and sit in the back seat.  As we drive down to the basin and then up the service road, I roll down the window and look out.  I realize that this may be all I see of Petra -- and pull out my camera and start taking pictures.  I'm bummed since I'm thinking that all the really good stuff is out the other window, but I can see lots of cliff carvings and ruins anyway.  I look up towards the Byzantine church excavation that I wanted to visit the next day and try to see as much as I can as we drive nearby.  Then I hear the driver on the radio; evidently they had asked how the patient was and he was rather disgustedly saying "He's taking pictures out the window."  I sheepishly put my phone away.

From my VIP Tour of Petra

Usually after an incident like this, I'm evaluated and released from the hospital pretty quickly.  I've even been chided for going to the ER at all, for the idea of a defibrillator is that it does its thing and everything is then OK.  So I'm worried about how long this will take; I'm going to miss my rendezvous near the main gate, so how will I get to the Bedouin camp?  My luggage was supposed to be there, with my medicines; what if I'm at the hospital long enough I need those?  We went through Wadi Musa, the town by Petra, and then out of town. Suddenly fresh fear grips me.  Where are we going?  Are we going to the next larger town, some 20 miles away?  But it turns out that the hospital was on a hilltop a couple miles out of town.

This hospital looks like what we had in the US in the 1930's.  It is spartan.  I am taken to an examination room, they run an EKG which looks basically OK, and decide that I was just dehydrated.  So they give me an IV bag of fluids.  What takes far longer is the police report.  I'm questioned by an officer about my nationality and visa, when I'd come to Jordan, where I'd been, and where I was staying. I was unclear about the name of my tour agency and the camp, and, flustered, had to look it up in my emails.  They ask me exactly where I'd hiked, where the incident occurred, just what happened.  This questioning happened a couple of times. 

During this questioning, I committed a severe cultural-religious faux pas.  I was telling about when I'd handed the coin back to the woman that when my unit fired "I had scared her to d**th."  Everyone in the room stiffened in consternation, and the policeman told me angrily, "Don't say that! You can't say that!  You must fear God!" and I quickly realized that I'd accidentally as much as cast a curse on the poor woman.  I apologized profusely.  I felt terrible, but had meant no harm, and tried to bless her help to me instead. It was an awkward moment that passed.  Finally, after a long time, the officer dictated the report line by line in Arabic to a junior who wrote it all down longhand.

They must have contacted the camp, because a driver arrived.  I paid my bill -- around $50 US -- and as I left, I asked if they could give me an ace bandage for my sprained ankle, which had been completely ignored.  They grabbed a couple bandages and tossed them in a bag, "Your care package," the nurse smiled. We hurried away, the driver being certain to charge me for the extra distance from the hospital.

I got to the Bedouin camp near Little Petra just in time for dinner.  The manager was very kind and helpful, he put me in a tent near the central men's washrooms and showers, and gave me a cane to help me walk.  I sat at dinner with an Irishman and a gay American couple and relished speaking American for the first time in a week.  After dinner, they ran the generators and hot water for a while so everyone could shower.  Then we sat on cushions around the fire, drinking hot tea, enjoying the lights the camp had put on the nearby rock outcrops, and watching the stars come out.  Clearly, I was not doing the back-way hike into Petra the next day, so they agreed to set me up with a driver who would take me to Shobek castle and Little Petra which would be more my speed.  Some Tylenol and an ice pack, and it seemed like the episode had wound down.  A good night's sleep, and I'd be fine.

Little did I know that the worst was yet to come.  More than once.

Relaxing around the campfire. "Seven Wonders" was not a rustic Bedouin camp.  Delightful glamping.