One in a million motorcycle accident
Whenever I tell my story peoples eyes get wide and they usually say “No Way!” But, you just can’t make this stuff up…….
On Memorial Day 2011 I went for a short 25 mile loop ride I regularly do from my house on the twisty rural roads of Vermont where I live. It was a nice sunny warm day so I wore my sneakers and jeans instead of my boots and heavy riding pants. I was about 5 minutes into my ride on a straightaway when (I didn’t know it then) the car approaching me’s front drivers side wheel came off just as we were passing. We were both doing 50 MPH. Just as I passed this car I felt an indescribable impact. Everything went black and I was vaguely aware of flying through the air and thinking “what the heck? did I hit something??” Next thing I know I am sitting up in the middle of the road looking at my bike on its side about 50 feet away on the double yellow line revving at full throttle and spewing oil everywhere. Then I thought “wow, I made it! I’m alive!” Next I dragged myself over to the shoulder for fear of getting hit by another car. Then I looked down and saw my left leg. It looked like a bloody snake. It didn’t hurt. But it laid there like a garden hose and I could see bones coming out at the femur and the tibia. I could also see all the insides of my knee. I have some first aid training so when I saw the big pool of blood coming out of my femur I thought I might have ripped that artery.
So I took off my belt and put it on my upper leg as a tourniquet. Luckily there was a house near by that called 911 and two people stopped to help me. The guy who’s wheel cam off didn’t even know it hit me. I never blacked out so I remember all of this with painful detail. 5 min. later the town cops arrived who just happened to be EMT’s and they started tending to me. 5 more min and the ambulance arrived and they put me on a board. I felt no pain until this moment. Then the pain hit me like a sledge hammer. I was taken to the nearest hospital 10 min away and then transferred to a helicopter that took me to Dartmouth Hospital. The only hospital arrant that could deal with my level of trauma. After a battery of tests and full body scans I found out my tibia was broken in two places (one right above my ankle), fibula broken in two places midway up (where the wheel hit me), my femur broken, my pelvis split, and my knee degloved. I had road rash in various other places. They put a rod in my femur and external fixator rods on my lower leg that night. The next day the doctor said they were considering amputating the whole thing, but they might be able to save it with some more surgeries. I ended up having 6 surgeries in 12 days. They put another rod in my lower leg and took out my gastroc calf muscle to wrap over my exposed knee. Then came the skin grafts. The pain was unbelievable. I was on every type of pain killer they had and it still could not take it all away. I didn’t eat at all for the first week. Very little the second week. friends and family came to visit everyday. It was so surreal. All I could do was cry. I felt like everything was over for me. After 3 weeks in the hospital I was going insane. But, I didn’t know what insane was until I got home. At home I couldn’t do a thing for myself and there was no little red button to push that sent a nurse running. Very hard to describe my emotional state during all this. Happy at times, deeply depressed, angry as hell. It has been all that. Now 4 months later I still can’t walk, still can’t work, still going to PT 4 times a week, still have pain. I just don’t know what I will end up with when its all over. If its ever over. The doctors say it will be a year until I know what I can and can’t do for the long run. The longest year of my life. This accident was probably less likely to happen to me than getting struck by lightning. But, I’m still trying. And lucky enough to be alive to do so.
