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- Dec 3, 2020
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I haven't saved anyone, but I have been on the receiving end. Today, actually. 7/16/08, what I call my "second birthday". I remember dinner the night before...then, nothing for over 2 weeks. Apparently I went to work, was demo riding a new motorcycle on my normal demo route (I knew every pothole, dip, seam and stripe)...brakes failed, and I went through a T intersection, into a cattle fence made out of telephone poles. I have zero recollection of anything - as I said, I remember dinner the night before, and that's it until 2 weeks later.
According to my surgeon (who I visited a year after, to say thank you), I'd died twice on scene; twice in the helicopter; and three times on the table.
"We kept at it because we're a teaching hospital (Johns Hopkins / MD Shock-Trauma)...but every one of us in that room figured you were going to leave in a bag."
Shattered L femur (17 pieces; now a titanium rod wrapped in regrown bone); compound fracture R tib-fib (also a rod now); broken left hip (titanium plate and hinge); lacerated liver; collapsed lung; bruised heart; 4 broken ribs; 4 broken vertebrae; severely torn R rotator cuff; and 2 closed-head brain traumae. Out of 26 beds in the head injury ward....I was the one who could talk to the nurses.
The only one.
And the first thought when I woke up / regained consciousness? "Where am I....and who the hell is this inside my head??" Injure your brain? You are INSTANTLY a different person. Literally. We've all known identical twins - they look the same, sound the same...well, so do I. But get to know the twins....they're different, alright. One up, one down. One relaxed, one hyper. One conservative, one risk-taker. Well, in the blink of an eye...I became my own twin. And, that was extremely hard for me to live with (took years of therapy, actually). I am not, nor will I ever be again, the person who - frankly - died in that ditch in 2008. I'm the guy who took his place. EVERYTHING is different.
I do NOT recommend trying it.
I don't have PTSD or deficiencies or anything like that (thank God)...but I am not who I was for 35 years. I was - emotionally - an infant while I was in that hospital, learning not only my physical injuries but also who I was on the most basic levels. I was a new person, and my formative years...were in a hospital bed, in a TBI ward.
I worked my *** off in PT, because I wanted my life back. I learned to walk again (muscle wraps to hold the rods in place meant muscles that had done one job for 35 years, were now tasked with another, completely different job) and was back at work (wearing a plastic torso clamshell, so my ribs and vertebrae set correctly) on January 2, 2000. Less than 5 months - and the docs told me as I was wheeled out of shock-trauma "sorry, but you're gonna have to get used to this chair, and will likely use a cane for the rest of your life".
I'm 6'4" tall. I was 154 lbs at discharge.
I walked through that entire hospital a year later, in 2009, thanking everyone I could find, whether they were there when I was or not. The ones who were, were floored that I was walking around. One of my PT's actually cried when she saw me walking. Another slapped me in the head when he heard I had showed up on my motorcycle that day. And grinned from ear to ear.
ANYONE who saves a life, is an angel.
Period.
Whether you performed CPR and literally saved a life, or whether you worked with a patient through a heavy rehab and helped them get their life BACK instead of being an invalid for the rest of their days...you are an angel. You were sent to that place, at that time, with that person, by someone greater than all of us (insert religion if you want; insert your secular deity if you want), to do the greatest, most selfless thing possible.
Nothing compares.
To anyone who has delivered when called upon at that crucial time? Thank you. You may never hear from your "patient", so hear it from me.
Thank you.
We - quite literally - could not do it without you.
According to my surgeon (who I visited a year after, to say thank you), I'd died twice on scene; twice in the helicopter; and three times on the table.
"We kept at it because we're a teaching hospital (Johns Hopkins / MD Shock-Trauma)...but every one of us in that room figured you were going to leave in a bag."
Shattered L femur (17 pieces; now a titanium rod wrapped in regrown bone); compound fracture R tib-fib (also a rod now); broken left hip (titanium plate and hinge); lacerated liver; collapsed lung; bruised heart; 4 broken ribs; 4 broken vertebrae; severely torn R rotator cuff; and 2 closed-head brain traumae. Out of 26 beds in the head injury ward....I was the one who could talk to the nurses.
The only one.
And the first thought when I woke up / regained consciousness? "Where am I....and who the hell is this inside my head??" Injure your brain? You are INSTANTLY a different person. Literally. We've all known identical twins - they look the same, sound the same...well, so do I. But get to know the twins....they're different, alright. One up, one down. One relaxed, one hyper. One conservative, one risk-taker. Well, in the blink of an eye...I became my own twin. And, that was extremely hard for me to live with (took years of therapy, actually). I am not, nor will I ever be again, the person who - frankly - died in that ditch in 2008. I'm the guy who took his place. EVERYTHING is different.
I do NOT recommend trying it.
I don't have PTSD or deficiencies or anything like that (thank God)...but I am not who I was for 35 years. I was - emotionally - an infant while I was in that hospital, learning not only my physical injuries but also who I was on the most basic levels. I was a new person, and my formative years...were in a hospital bed, in a TBI ward.
I worked my *** off in PT, because I wanted my life back. I learned to walk again (muscle wraps to hold the rods in place meant muscles that had done one job for 35 years, were now tasked with another, completely different job) and was back at work (wearing a plastic torso clamshell, so my ribs and vertebrae set correctly) on January 2, 2000. Less than 5 months - and the docs told me as I was wheeled out of shock-trauma "sorry, but you're gonna have to get used to this chair, and will likely use a cane for the rest of your life".
I'm 6'4" tall. I was 154 lbs at discharge.
I walked through that entire hospital a year later, in 2009, thanking everyone I could find, whether they were there when I was or not. The ones who were, were floored that I was walking around. One of my PT's actually cried when she saw me walking. Another slapped me in the head when he heard I had showed up on my motorcycle that day. And grinned from ear to ear.
ANYONE who saves a life, is an angel.
Period.
Whether you performed CPR and literally saved a life, or whether you worked with a patient through a heavy rehab and helped them get their life BACK instead of being an invalid for the rest of their days...you are an angel. You were sent to that place, at that time, with that person, by someone greater than all of us (insert religion if you want; insert your secular deity if you want), to do the greatest, most selfless thing possible.
Nothing compares.
To anyone who has delivered when called upon at that crucial time? Thank you. You may never hear from your "patient", so hear it from me.
Thank you.
We - quite literally - could not do it without you.
