Turning fate into fortune
Andrew Oberle, who survived an attack by two chimpanzees at Chimp Eden five years ago, now leads the Oberle Institute that provides supportive care to trauma patients at Saint Louis University.
MBOMBELA – “I survived for a reason,” Andrew Oberle recently told a reporter in Missouri, United States five years after surviving an attack by two chimpanzees at Chimp Eden.
Lowvelder reported in June 2012 how chimps Nikki and Amadeus attacked Oberle.
He had apparently ignored protocol and climbed over a safety fence serving as a barrier to the main electrified fence, when he saw a chimp trying to drag a rock through the main fence.
It was believed that the two saw this as a challenge to their territory. They grabbed his feet and pulled him through the fence where they mauled him and caused serious injuries to his face, arm and groin.
He was rushed to Mediclinic Nelspruit and was hospitalised for several months.
He remained in hospital in South Africa until he was strong enough to travel to St Louis, where he was further treated by a team of SLUCare physicians and SSM Health Saint Louis University Hospital therapists, counsellors and nurses.
He now leads the Oberle Institute at Saint Louis University (SLU), a private research university in St Louis.
The institute provides supportive care to trauma patients.
According to the article published on the university’s website, Oberle said that he was “thriving” again after hours of rehabilitation, including 26 surgical interventions.
He works with Dr Bruce Kraemer, a plastic surgeon who treated him, a trauma nursing coordinator, professional counsellor, occupational therapists, chaplain, music therapist, dog therapist and a trauma social worker.
Oberle also told St Louis Public Radio that his experience shaped the vision for the Oberle Institute.
“The mental and emotional support I received from the beginning allowed me to focus on positive things, working hard in therapy and not being afraid of the surgery.”
According to the article a “collection of carbon-fibre foot prosthetics” and a “bionic” hand helped him to build confidence and find a new sense of purpose.
He completed a graduate degree in anthropology and is enrolled in SLU’s executive master of health administration programme, accruing more skills needed at the institute.
He recently won the top award from the Missouri chapter of the American College of Healthcare Executives for a student essay on fostering resilience to improve the outcomes of trauma patients, which drew upon his personal experience.
Not being able to work with chimpanzees any more, starting the Oberle Institute provided an answer to the question he has grappled with since the attack.
“It would be almost irresponsible not to take what happened to me and use it to help others,” he told Post-Dispatch reporter, Blythe Bernhard.
Efforts to reach Oberle for an interview were unsuccessful. Bernhard referred Lowvelder to the SLU director of media enquiries, Nancy Solomon, who said Oberle limits interviews to “reporters with whom he has a relationship”.
