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Australian doctors saved the life of a New Zealand anthropologist after he was pierced by arrows while trying to save his French girlfriend from being raped in Papua New Guinea.
The man needed a blood transfusion from one of the doctors following the couple's harrowing ordeal in the remote North Fly District in PNG's Western Province 10 days ago.
One of the arrows penetrated his rib cage, narrowly avoiding the liver before it passed through his stomach and stopped just short of his aorta.
Bleeding profusely, he was also bashed on the head with a rock before the couple managed to flee.
The French woman, who was sexually assaulted, activated an emergency beacon and the couple reached a village aid post where they were able to organise an airlift to the port town of Kiunga.
"There was an arrow in his ribs and one in his stomach," Delene Evans, the general manager of Australian Doctors International, whose volunteer medics helped save the man, told AFP.
Sydney doctors Josette Docherty and Allan Mason, who are volunteering at a local hospital, treated the injured man.
In her report on the incident, Docherty said the three-hour emergency surgery revealed that one of the arrows had pierced through the man's stomach and stopped just short of the aorta.
She said the attack was "an extremely unfortunate and rare incident" in impoverished PNG, where doctors are in short supply and communicable diseases such as pneumonia, malaria and tuberculosis take a deadly toll.
"Australian Doctors International has been working in Western Province of PNG for nine years and this is the first time we have encountered such an incident," the volunteer doctor said.
"Generally, we find the people there warm, hospitable and proud to share their culture with foreigners."
Docherty organised for the couple to be medically evacuated to Australia, and they arrived at Cairns Base Hospital's emergency ward last week.
A Queensland Health spokeswoman told The Cairns Post newspaper the man was discharged yesterday. The couple have declined to be interviewed.
Daru-Kiunga Bishop Gilles Cote said it appeared their attacker - a tribesman who wanted to marry the French woman - turned aggressive when he was rejected.
When the New Zealander stepped in to protect her he was shot, Bishop Cote told the Cairns Post.
"The spears narrowly missed the man's vital organs. He lost a lot of blood, It's a miracle he survived," he said.
- NZPA / The Cairns Post
