Forget the obvious man-made dangers of war, civil srife, traffic, crime, etc. How many of you have come away from a safari with illness or injury sustained while hunting that required medical attention?

In 7 trips I have had problems with intestinal bacteria 3 times. Given the typical delay between exposure and symptoms, one case was probably caught while travelling through Europe. The other two were certainly caught while in-country.

On my most recent trip this year, I caught a serious infection in my left leg as a result of cutting my knee on a dead snag while climbing a kopi. Three years ago I suffered what we guessed to be a spider bite that caused me some problems for about a month. Other than that, nothing to write home about.

How about you guys? Illnesses, bites, cuts, falls, a dance with a buff?

In 2005 I was hospitalized in RSA for 5 days due to some type of stomach infection, had a very high white cell count. I could not keep anything down including water, became very dehydrated. Plus being diabetic did not help matters. I allways figured I got it on the plane trip over since I came down sick starting on the third day of my trip.

I got bitten by a spider in 04 (I think) which required hospitalization upon my return. I was in really bad shape. I was a bit surprised they let me back in the country.

Sometime in the 90's, I got really sick after a trip to Zim. So did everyone else in the camp. Ends up there were 3 dead monkeys in the water reservoir. I had stomach problems you can't imagine.

My brother got deathly ill in Masai Land in the mid 90's. It was never determined what the problem was (long story). However, I truly feared he was going to die.

I recall Bwana Bunduki (Jeff), Wendell and JB DeRunz all having pretty serious problems.

My antimalaria is Doxycycline by choice, and so far knock on wood... It seems to eliminate or moderate digestive issues, bites, and would-be infections.

Seems like on about half of my safaris I've got a bug of some sort while there or on the way home that on a couple of occasions has knocked me down for a day or two. Overall I'd say the tetse flies and other biting bugs have been a bigger problem than anything else.

Mark

Seems if I go to Mexico or South America, the Carribean I get sick about every time, but in 4 trips to Africa, I have yet to even have a sniffle.

quote:

Ends up there were 3 dead monkeys in the water reservoir.

2 trips, one slight case of too much airline food and one mildly-sprained ankle.

New Orleans is very dangerous. (Sorry, couldn't resist)

Got a case of tick-bite fever in '08, but got it diagnosed within 24 hrs of onset of symptoms and was feeling back to normal by the first full day home.

Also had a really bad case of constipation in Namibia in '05. Everybody keeps talking about getting diarrhea in Africa, I got the opposite. Always have packed dulcolax since then.

Been there a few times 7 to be exact and doesn't seem nearly as dangerous as downtown Baltimore, for awhile they were averaging almost a killing a day, having a contest with Detroit for most voilent city. I have never been uncomfortable in Africa from a safety standpoint.

Been 4 times......only time I got sick is when I was figuring out how much it was going to cost me to go back the next time.....well, except for the one time in SA when I drank some liquor known as "Cane"......but that was a bit self-induced.

Gary
DRSS
NRA Lifer
SCI
DSC

i got sunburned a couple times

In 1993 I lost an entire day going from the lowveld in Zimbabew to Bulawayo and back to see a Doctor and get some Prednisone to counter a reaction for the anti-mylaria profolaxis I was on. The Indian Doctor was livid, he said Man we don't even use this here anymore American Doctors have everything and don't care! I had to agree in that instance, I was one sick dog and getting worse. Three month recovery after I arrived back home. Did not stop me from hunting and was not directly the fault of Africa at all. No problems at all on subsequent safari's.

Other than sunburns from 7 safaris that has led to some skin cancer, I had to have 7 stitches to my lower left lip which was caused by a large thorn that caught and ripped my lip open while riding in the back of the safari vehicle. I was warned too late and didn't duck fast enough. I was lucky that it was the lip and not the eye. In any event, the white doctor that stitched me up did a great job, with no scar to show to this day. Unfortunately, he then killed himself 3 months later with a bullet to his head.

lucky, I guess; just a few pepper ticks in Zimbabwe. Of course, we got out to camp right away and drank only bottled water. Made the coffee with it too.

Rich

16 trips, very ill 3 times.

Twice very ill while on the trip- resting several days in bed. Some bug.

After one trip I slept 22 hours a day for TWO WEEKS!

Still get recurring similar illness, been to Duke Infectious Disease Specialist twice, no trace of anything. Probably have a few parasites growing somewhere that will land me on House one day.

Spider Bite the first trip- man it hurt!

My son was ill both trips he went, stayed in bed a week after his return on the second trip.

Its either the plane or the food preparation. One camp I noticed a dead mouse in the cream pot. I then observed the camp cook, female, spooning it out of the pot. Turns out she was afraid to tell her boss she left the cream out, so was just going to scoop it out and say nothing.

Both times I was ill while hunting the staff was ill, but the PH did not excuse them from work..so I caught what they had- probably...
Gotta love Africa.

The worst I have had was a case of heat exhaustion. This is really fairly common, and a lot more serious than most would think.

Us Americans are so used to A/C and the issue of money and plans that we won't back off when we should a bit.

I also think you are a lot more likely to get ill in the cities before or after, or most likely in that petri dish called an airliner.

A zebra tried to kill me once. But I got him first. No joke.

A lion tried and would have liked to have killed me another time, but we didn't give him much of a chance.

Both times my troubles were of my own making.

No harm came to me or anyone else, though.

Knock on wood as to the future.

In Tanzania they used heated lake water for the showers, and I must have got some in my mouth, and as a result I spent the first night in camp and first day on safari decorating the Selous with various parts of my intestinal tract. Not fun. It passed after 24 hrs.

I think there has to be something about the bush in SA. Every year i got THE WORST hangover you can imagine!! Not only me, but my SA friend as well... And that after only a few crates of beer and some brandy..

Here in norway people use brandy as medicine..

Thinking about it, I have had fever/chills for a day twice, I think in reaction to tsetse fly bites but just those from the Zambezi Valley. 8hrs on foot seemed to knock it right out of me though! I actually shot my first elephant bull in Sapi while running a pretty high fever. But - to put it into perspective - I have yet to lose a day out of about 175 in Africa. And add another 75 days combined for my sons w/o a problem.

This being said, one of the reasons I encourage people to go at least 10-days and preferably 12-14 is to allow for an occasional down/recovery day. While Africa may not be as physically demanding as a backpack North American sheep hunt (well, in my experience, some CAN be if you choose to), there are many other conditions that alone or cumulatively can wipe a guy out for a day or two.

Six trips to Zimbabwe, one to Ethiopia and the worst was pepper ticks.

Lived in India for a year on and off and just got the odd bouts of giardia and the normal gut rot from bacteria I'm not used to. After a few weks I just stopped getting ill - even drinking out of mountain streams and chai shop water jugs. I guess the old gut just gets tougher.

Five years in thailand and got food poisoning once from a steetside roti.

Botswana was abreeze (except for the elephants) but RSA got me tick bite fever (ricketsia). Not much fun. I shed four kilos and have not put it back on - which is actually quite handy!

Scorpion sting. The little SOB was in my pack and when I reached in he got me three times. I lost 1/2 day of hunting because of pain. No allergic reaction but a lady on an earlier hunt was tagged by a scorpion and wound up spending the better part of a week in the hospital. The scorpion met his maker this day!!! I would have had him mounted but there wasn't much left when I finished stomping him. This is the only major issue in 9 trips. Two near misses with puff adders on camp trails after dark. I learned to use a good flashlight when walking around.

I grew up in SA so I am immune to tick bite, giardia and probably some other stuff. I have never had a problem going back to Zim, SA or Namibia. I nearly lost a finger to a spider bite here in Oregon though.

Two trips ago I was very ill for 24 hours in the Free State. It may have been a bug or maybe too much alcohol.

Last June my wife fell and cut her knee on a rock in the Drakensburg Mts. and it needed four stitches.

On another trip I caught a very bad cold.

So that's not a bad record. Nothing serious.

Oh, one other thing. When I was in Zimbabwe in 2007, the PH was not feeling well and mentioned that his tap water smelled/tasted funny. He asked me about mine and I said that it was fine. I then told him to have the trackers check the open-topped water tank above his quarters. A couple of mice had fallen in and drowned. Needless to say I told him to drain the tank and disinfect it. He was smart enough to do so. He also had them check mine and nothing was in there.

Hunters go where there are few people, if we take our malarial prophylaxis, we're probably gonna be fine. The missionaries who go to thickly populated disaster areas are the ones in danger from people and contagious disease.
A friend just returned from such, got sick, admitted to hospital--not sure what yet.

One trip and ZERO problems. Now you guys have me worrying about my next trip. You know I was only gong to make one trip... Right! That all changed as it does for everyone.

Stay clear of the roasted chicken at JoBurg Air Port!!!!!

Come on! Africa is a dark country, but definitely not for softies...

the real
charm of a hunting trip is facing chalanges a none dangerous trip would be boring.of cours sickness during a trip is not funny, but with a little precaution you can scape and prevent many diseases. in my job in pharmacy often i was asked about what shall i bring with me to safari and i have provided them with information for traveling to tropical countries,. with some simple medication with you and good precaution you can with 90% safty travel to any corner of the world without fearing for diseases,
keep on hunting and don't fear the evil
regards
yes

Tick bite fever twice when I lived in RSA.. Not fun at all, but starting on Doxy as soon as the symtoms began knocked it out pretty quick..

Nothing in 5 subsequent trips to Zim and RSA other than the odd stomach bug for a day or so..


I worry more about a car wreck than anything while there..

My wife got a touch of something from ONE pepper tick last trip. I got heartache. Oh, wait, I never have lost that after growing up in Africa. Houston traffic is far more dangerous.

if you are concerned about ticks. take garlic pills and repelent spray on your clothes. i was hunting roe and i took a few garlic pils . back at home i had 16 ticks inside my clothes , but none on my skin. garlic pils will protect you against ticks.

Four trips with no problems and I even ate lunch of a giraffe, with the trackers, which I found out later was dead on the ground for a week before they cooked it. Pretty good!

A lot of you guys seem to suffer from ticks. You might like to consider swapping your shower gel for dog tick and flea shampoo for the duration of your safari and a few days after and also spraying your clothes, esp your trousers (pants to you Americans) with Bayticol which is readily available in most parts of Africa.

Also, if you take Doxycycline, I suggest you also take a daily dose of live acidophilis which will prevent you getting thrush. You might also like to take a tube of anti thrush cream as a back up because if you get in on your old chap, it can make for very painful walking indeed!

Incidentally, if you are unlucky enough to get thrush on your old chap and you're miles from the nearest treatment of any kind, an emergency treatment for it is to dip your dick in a container of live yoghurt for as while a couple of times a day.

This page and the links at the bottom might help.

http://www.shakariconnection.c...can-hunt-health.html

Bug bites in RSA....some leave scars on the skin.

This year in RSA got bit by those tiny no-see-ems type fu**ers . We were on a long walk chasing Eland and we sat down on the ground for a break, that is where their home was and they got a couple of people in the party....local boys were immune to them as their scratching went away quickly. Calamine lotion worked for me.

I have had some bad experiences with bugs in the Yucatan as well. There the problem was ticks, little tiny ones.

Word to the wise...when you are out in the bush and the outfitter casually warns you about ticks in the area then you may want to check your body every day for ticks. Some areas they love to hide are the skin between your toes, underarm area, backside of your knee, ballsack...also you may want to give your Peter a careful exam every now and then as well. Nothing worse than getting a tick related disease which could have been easily avoided.

My biggest problem is not sleeping. I don't know why, I just have a hard time sleeping. Sleeping pills this past trip helped a lot.

Tetse flies bug me. Kigosi was the worst for that.

Other than that, I was with Wendell when he got malaria. We came back to check on him the second day he was sick, and Johhny Miller told us he was gone.

"I thought you had to an elephant tusk stuck up your ass to get medivaced, but he got on that sat phone and about three hours later he was gone," he said kind of incredulously.

I have never been sick. I do recall getting very sick on flight back from South America. Puked and crapped the whole 10 hours from Sao Paulo, right after I ate dinner.

quote:

Originally posted by Use Enough Gun:
. . . a large thorn that caught and ripped my lip open while riding in the back of the safari vehicle.

Getting bush-whacked is one of my biggest fears when I'm in the bush. I think that fear began as a child when I read a Robert Frost poem, Birches, where he states:

"Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig's having lashed across it open." OUCH!!!! What imagery!!

I did get the tick bite fever one time and thought I could outlast it. I was desperately ill for a week. I thought I was going to die, and afraid I wouldn't. I finally got some Doxycycline and got better. I still have the scar along my belt line.

Jim had tick bite fever in Zimbabwe one year, then this year he broke a toe chasing down a giraffe. (Footwear came off in a hole.)

So essentially, we've experienced nothing that would keep us away. The mystery of what is next adds to the excitment.