Namibia researcher airlifted to the capital city

Southern African Let’s Go Researcher David J. Bright ’02 will be returning to the United States this weekend after being released from a Namibian hospital in the wake of a car accident Tuesday.

Bright’s car hit sand and flipped while he was driving Tuesday in the northwestern Namibian state of Khorixas. He suffered lacerations to the head, right arm and left hand in the accident.

A “Good Samaritan” found Bright at the scene of the accident and took him to the Khorixas hospital, where he contacted Let’s Go editors in Cambridge, said Let’s Go Publishing Director Sarah P. Rotman ’02.

The Let’s Go series of budget travel guides are a publication of the Harvard Student Agencies and are produced entirely by Harvard undergraduates.

Since Bright is an Irish citizen, Let’s Go worked with both the U.S. and Irish embassies in Namibia to arrange for him to be airlifted to a more advanced hospital in the Namibian capital of Windhoek.

“He’s received the treatment he needs and he’s doing very well,” Rotman said.

Once in the capital, Bright connected with a delegation of Harvard students and a professor working with Worldteach, a Harvard-founded nonprofit that provides educational volunteers in Third World areas.

One of Bright’s friends, Kitso Lemo ’02, was in the Worldteach delegation and spent several hours with Bright in the hospital on Wednesday.

Bright’s prognosis is very good, and he’s expected to make a full recovery. He was up and about walking on Wednesday.

Rotman said Bright would likely be released from the hospital this weekend, and would return to Cambridge to work in the Let’s Go offices for the remainder of the summer. Let’s Go would not allow him to continue his route in Namibia.

“He really wants to [stay in Namibia] but we won’t let him,” Rotman said.

No decisions have been made yet about how the Southern African guide will be completed.

Bright is a resident of Lowell House and a former vice-chair of the House Committee.

—Staff Writer Garrett M. Graff can be reached at ggraff@fas.harvard.edu.