Ashley Judd Shares New Photos, Details From Near-Fatal Congo Accident

Ashley Judd has shared new details from her harrowing accident in the jungle of the Democratic Republic of Congo last week. While she is on the road to recovery, she said the internal bleeding would have likely killed her had it not been for her rescuers.

On Tuesday, she shared a series of photos showing how the rescue happened after she shattered her leg. The 52-year-old actress expressed gratitude to the Congolese people who helped her "during my grueling 55-hour odyssey."

"Friends. Without my Congolese brothers and sisters, my internal bleeding would have likely killed me, and I would have lost my leg. I wake up weeping in gratitude, deeply moved by each person who contributed something life giving and spirit salving during my grueling 55 hour odyssey," she wrote on Instagram alongside the photos and a video.

Sharing "some of their stories," Judd said that one of the locals who helped her was a man named Dieumerci, who "stretched out his leg and put it under my grossly misshapen left leg to try to keep it still."

"It [her leg] was broken in four places and had nerve damage. Dieumerci ('Thanks be to God') remained seated, without fidgeting or flinching, for 5 hours on the rain forest floor. He was with me in my primal pain. He was my witness," she shared.

Another local named Papa Jean found the two after looking for them for five hours.

"He told me what he had to do. I bit a stick. I held onto Maud. And Papa Jean, with certainty began to manipulate and adjust my broken bones back into something like a position I could be transported in, while I screamed and writhed," she recalled. "How he did that so methodically while I was like an animal is beyond me. He saved me. & he had to do this twice!"

Judd said that six men then carried her out on a hammock, and they walked "for three hours over rough terrain." The actress was then transported by motorbike.

"Didier drove the motorbike. I sat facing backwards, his back my backrest. When I would begin to slump, to pass out, he would call to me to re-set my position to lean on him. Maradona rode on the very back of the motorbike, i faced him. He held my broken leg under the heel and I held the shattered top part together with my two hands," she recalled.

They rode for six hours on an "irregular, rutted and pocked dirt road that has gullies for rain run off during the rainy season." Maradona, Judd said, was the "only person to come forward to volunteer for this task."

"We have a nice friendship, discussing the pros and cons of polygamy and monogamy. I show two pictures, one in his hat and one in mine, which he dearly covets!" she continued.

The photos also featured "the women! My sisters who held me. They blessed me."

Last week, Judd was interviewed by The New York Times' Nicholas Kristof over Instagram Live, where she spoke from her hospital bed.

Judd said she was "in an ICU trauma unit in beautiful South Africa, which has taken me in from the Congo: a country I deeply love, which is not, unfortunately, equipped to deal with massive catastrophic injuries like I have had."

"And the difference between a Congolese person and me is disaster insurance that allowed me 55 hours after my accident to get to an operating table in South Africa," added the actress.

On how she broke her leg, she said that during an outing, she had a faulty head lamp and could not see well, causing her to trip over a fallen tree.

Judd said she had spent a night "in a hut" in the city of Jolu, before being flown to the capital of Kinshasa to stay for 24 hours. She was later taken to South Africa for treatment.