Ashley Judd Would Have Bled To Death If She Had Been Transported To Europe After Congo Accident

Ashley Judd recounted the traumatic accident in Congo that almost caused her life.

Judd, 53, was hiking through a forest in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in February 2021 when she tripped over a fallen tree and shattered her right leg. After over a year, she revisited the "catastrophic" accident when she appeared on Kate Roberts' "Sex, Body & Soul" podcast.

"I don't know how the mind and the body and the soul come together to manage to endure the unendurable," she was quoted by People as saying. "I bit a stick, I screamed, I howled, I convulsed. I never did pass out — I wished that I could."

In a previous interview over Instagram Live, Judd said the next 55 hours following the accident were "incredibly harrowing." She lay in the forest for five hours until someone found her group and reset her bones. Her "Congolese brothers" then took her in a hammock and walked her "up and over hills, through the river" for an hour and a half back to their camp. They rode a motorcycle for six hours to reach a spot where she could be rescued and flown to the hospital.

"I was in hospital in South Africa for about nine days. And then I was medevaced to Tennessee. But when I got to South Africa, my leg didn't have a pulse and I was hemorrhaging, and if I had been medevaced to Europe I would've bled to death," she told the host.

The humanitarian actress realized during the over 2-day rescue operation that "as animalistic as I was, my mind was pretty skilled" because she endured the distressing 55-hour experience before reaching the hospital.

"It showed me that all the work I've done in the development of my meditation process and how hard I've tried to heal, that that really was with me throughout those 55 hours," the "Double Jeopardy" actress added. "And this doesn't make me good right and perfect, and I'm not trying to toot my own horn, but there was a certain grace that stayed with me."

The "A Time to Kill" star said she knew she couldn't have expectations about getting help or a painkiller. She was thankful that she was still able to say "please and thank you" and didn't blame the incident on anyone and didn't take it out to any people around her.

In January, Judd celebrated "the 11 month anniversary of having broken my leg in four places and paralyzing my foot" on Instagram. She shared in the caption that she just walked five miles in her place since she was preparing to return to Congo. Judd wanted to reunite with the people who helped her when she had the accident a year ago.

"My heart is open and eager. I do not yet know what I will feel, I know only that I will feel, and I am ready to greet the experience with curiosity, wonder, and an abundance of gratitude for every life-saving sister and brother who stroked my face, carried my makeshift hammock through the rain forest for hours, wept alongside my agony, or simply laid beside me as I bit a stick while in shock," she added.