The trip to the Gibbon Experience had three parts: driving fast along a winding paved road, driving slowly offroad to a village, then hiking from the village to the tree houses. Both going in and coming out, we saw something on the fast road leg that’s worth mentioning.

On the way in, we were descending along a hillside with a sharp curve to the left. There was oncea long metal guard rail, but it had been torn away by a tanker truck that had taken the curve too fast and fallen off the road, down into the ravine below, some forty or fifty feet. When we passed by, there was a large tow truck there, and a few people standing around, trying to figure out how to pull it out. When we passed by it again on the way out, the truck was still there, crumpled a bit and cracked, the smell of gasoline strong.

The way back was more distressing. After we left lunch, a large passenger van passed our song-taaws. About 20 kilometers from Huay Xai, we passed through a small village. In the village, a small blue truck had pulled out into the road just as the van sped through. The van struck the driver’s side of the truck cab. The front of both was completely crushed by the impact. There was glass everywhere, twisted metal, and dripping pools of fluid, a crowd gathered around.

Our song-taaw had two medical students (Israeli army doctors, one year from completing their studies), another one had a medical student from Australia. They immediately jumped out and headed to the accident. We saw people run up with a 10 foot long 4×4 board, I think to try to pry the vehicles apart. We saw them carry two people away, limp.

The doctors returned after about 10 minutes, frustrated. There was nothing they could do. The driver of the blue truck was not going to survive. The driver of the van had open fractures on both his upper and lower leg, and a crushed pelvis. The doctors tried tried to explain that they needed a board to splint the left and body and something to tie the person down with, but could not explain it. Instead, locals put the injured person in the back of a van, to (hopefully?) drive him to the hospital in Huay Xai. We left before they did. We passed a police car, but no ambulance. The doctor sitting across from me put his head in his hands and talked about the lack of basic medical care, supplies (no first aid kits in the village that he could find), knowledge, or urgency. The person with the crushed pelvis could have a good chance of surviving if treated properly, but the lack of EMT response or proper care was very bad for him.

But this is the reality of poor rural areas, especially in developing regions of the world. It’s not their fault that they don’t know the best emergency medical approaches, or don’t have medical supplies. All of these things cost money. Economic growth, in addition to material goods, generally brings improved education, improved services, and the corresponding increase in life expectancy. When I hear someone say “don’t buy from China” or “keep American jobs with Americans,” now all I’ll be able to think of is lost economic opportunities to people so much worse off, being deterred from earning the same possibilities and safety that I have.

— The Professor