Motorcycle Wreck
My name is Wayne Fielder. On Sunday, April 20th, 2008 my wife Donna and I were riding our 2005 Harley Davidson Fatboy south on Hwy 231 in Lebanon when our accident occurred. As we approached the entrance to Cedars of Lebanon State Park a car heading north on 231 cut across in front us. I locked up both brakes and swerved to the right to avoid the collision but it was too late. We hit the car between the bumper and the front wheel on the passenger side.
When I woke up my wife was about 8 feet from me with her back to me and I was laying on my back. We checked on one another to see if we were ok, I told my wife that I thought my leg was broken because I could see what looked like a piece of bone sticking through my sock. It wasn’t apparent to me at the time that my boot had been ripped off my foot. There was a flea market going on that weekend and several people came over to help us. I remember an off duty firefighter staying with me and making sure I didn’t black out again. While we waited for the ambulance my wife called our neighbor to come and get our bike and haul it home for us. After the ambulance arrived they initially thought I was ok to transport to a local hospital until they removed my sock and found my left foot had been degloved (toes and skin were pulled off) in the accident. The EMTs at the scene called for lifeflight and began to prepare me to be flown to Vanderbilt. Although my wife had sustained nerve damage to her left leg and was battered and bruised she refused the ambulance ride because she was afraid we would end up being treated at separate hospitals. She rode with my neighbor Kristy to Vanderbilt to meet up with me in the emergency room. After a short and expensive ride in Lifeflight I woke up in the emergency room to see my wife there waiting on me to come around.
In the emergency room I met Dr. Marc Tressler, my orthopedic surgeon. He told me that my foot had been degloved and he wouldn’t know the extent of the damage until he got me into surgery. He advised me although he could try to repair the damage he would only be prolonging the inevitable that I would be loosing at least part my foot. That night he took a third of my foot. Late that night after surgery, Dr. Tressler told my wife there was more damage than he had anticitpated and he would probably have to amputate my leg below the knee. Mid morning on Monday Dr. Tressler came to my room and told me I had extensive nerve and tissue damage all the way to my knee. He told me it was my choice, he could try and save what was left but in his opinion with all the damage, eventually I would be looking at an amputation. I remember questioning how a prosthetic would attach to a partially amputated foot. It just seemed to me that it would be harder to function that way than with than a prosthetic attached to a below the knee amputation. We talked and agreed that a below the knee amputation made sense and would be my best option to get me back to living my life.
Dr. Tressler brought by a couple of people from Superior Orthopedics and Prosthetics that afternoon and told me that they would be helping me with my prosthesis from the time of surgery forward. Later that day Dr. Tressler introduced me to Donna Boggs an amputee that works as a consultant for Superior. The guys from superior told me how I would come out of surgery with a temporary prosthetic. They told me how the temporary would help me mentally, by me being able to see a leg still there but would not be used to walk on. On Wednesday April 23, they took me into surgery and Dr. Tressler removed my leg 8 inches below my left knee. I was in Vanderbilt for a total of 6 days and I have to say I appreciate the way the staff at Vanderbilt took care of me. I also have to say that the guys from Superior were there for me, making sure I was ok and I didn’t have any issues after the surgery.
I had a few other issues during the summer. I fell once in June and tore my stitches and in July my leg became infected. The fall was no big deal but the infection gave us a scare that I was going to lose more of the leg. In July Dr. Tressler reopened my wound, cleaned it out of infection and put a wound vac on me. I was making trips to Vanderbilt three times a week for the next 6 weeks but the wound vac did it’s job and everything healed.
I was fitted and put in my first walking prosthetic in September. I walked on crutches for 3 or 4 days and then began using a cane. I walked with a cane for maybe a week and then put it down. One of my favorite memories through this experience is seeing the smile on my wife’s face as I walked out to my car. It was the first time she had seen me walk very far without the help of a cane or crutches. I have been walking on a prosthetic for over a year now with more good days than bad ones.
