Perhaps the most famous incident in the Alby Mangels story, he and Judy were in the middle of their visit to South America. They were travelling in their jeep towards Manaus, the largest town on the Amazon, when the accident happened. None on board (including one of his cameramen) recall what actually happened. Alby regained consciousness in hospital to be told that they had collided with a bus, that the jeep was totalled, that the bus had rolled down a ravine, and that several passengers had been killed. Judy suffered severe head injuries, and Alby had broken ribs and collar bone and a fractured skull. Alby's shoulder was pinned and his torso wrapped in plaster (not plastic). The hospital conditions were appalling, so they risked further injury by flying back to Caracas for proper medical treatment. Judy's mother arrived to take care of her, and plans were made to return to Australia just as soon as possible.

But the story is far from over. The trip back to Australia took forty hours. Back in Sydney during recovery, Alby was feeling really down, thinking that WSII had been prematurely terminated, and he longed to get back to his farm to rest and see Sam again.

When he returned home, he found that Sam had been shot dead. Devastated, he wandered around aimlessly for weeks, but eventually returned to Sydney to have the pin removed from his shoulder. That twitch of pain he kept feeling was not imagined, because upon removal it became clear that the pin had been severed with a bolt-cutter! A few months later Alby decided to head back to South America to finish what he had begun. But first he flew down to Melbourne to see Judy, knowing that she was a no-starter, even though she had almost fully recovered.

It's been reported in various places that Judy later had some beef with Alby over this whole matter. We personally cannot understand this, since Alby was at no fault, and Judy should have been well aware before accepting the offer to go that most of his companions wind up injured, mentally scarred,... or worse. Indeed, in the WSII movie, Judy is plainly happy to see Alby when he visits her at a gym in Melbourne, and everything appears OK between them. If you can shed light on this then feel free to e-mail us with the details so we can include a post-script. We personally would be very disappointed to hear that this is indeed true!

You can shove your cheap French vogue soc-i-e-ty... Goodbye!