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How to survive your bike accident, part 2
ECSTASY TO CATASTROPHE
After being struck head-on by a drunken hit ‘n’ run driver, Scott Jones’ true story ended last month in the Acute Care unit of an American hospital. Broken neck, cracked skull, sliced artery to the brain, inoperable fractured pelvis, bruised ribs, sprained hands, extensive damage to leg/groin area plus pins and rods protruding from his recently re-assembled foot.
Day Four
I’m transferred to my own room where there’s no screaming, moaning or groaning. It’s swell but I’m still swelling. The good news: I’m not acute anymore. The bad news: I’m not cute. My hair feels like slimy seaweed along the shoreline after an oil spill. Both legs are growing, the entire right leg twice its normal size. My thighs and buttocks are several colours, none of which are normally associated with skin. (I don’t understand the damage and pain to this area until I view my bike at the impound lot, the imprint of my legs and buns clearly visible in the gas tank, see above, crushed by my groin.) My scrotum continues to grow and turn multicoloured. I have no clue why I still have 2 round testicles and not 2 flat pancakes. Where did they hide? Maybe they saw it coming and fled internally at light speed to the safety of my helmet? One cracked my skull and the other broke my neck from the inside out.
It takes all my effort to turn on my side. I love my adjustable bed with sidebars and button to alert the nurse it’s time for my best friend, Mr. Morphine. I am not a fan of the mattress or pillows. The mattress is a plastic-covered, semi-soft, semi-hard device, lower in the middle, like a long trough, designed to make rolling over more like climbing a hill. The pillow, inside a pillowcase the thickness of one cotton molecule, is a flat, sturdy rectangle meagerly filled with mystery material, the opposite of soft feathers, perhaps other parts of the duck – feet, bones and beaks? A patient would never steal one of these pillows. If they are ever used for a pillow fight, people will be taken to the emergency room.
Day Five is the worst
The swelling continues, all the pains from all my parts vie for my attention. At mid-day my bladder goes on strike. I suspect he finally woke up, looked at his distorted organ buddies in the general neighbourhood and went into shock. A nurse reinserts my friend/enemy the catheter, removed yesterday after the foot operation. It feels like she’s shoving a refrigerator
through my privates…sideways. I barter with my body: “Okay, fine. I’ll take more pain here for less pain over there. Just let me do Number One.”
For the first time in my life, I have to use a bedpan, and I cannot wipe myself. After a hasty, inadequate swipe from the nurse, I have a better understanding of the indignity of incapacitated folks in nursing homes, hospices and hospitals. If this state of incapacity ever becomes permanent for me, I’ll take the generally illegal pill, liquid or gas that takes me permanently away. If I can’t wipe me, then wipe me out. Maybe Vitamin 357 Magnum. Just give me a shot.…!
Believe it or not, but all this protective gear does NOT have to be hot. Check it out in the shops!
I’m alive because of three things
1.Luck, simple good luck; 2. I was in very good physical condition; 3. The primary key to my survival was drilled
into me by my motorcycle safety instructors: wear protective clothing! I wore a full-face helmet, leather biking boots, padded gloves, pants and long-sleeved riding jacket. My only skin injury is a scratch on my wrist between the jacket arm and glove.
I never understand the garb, or lack of it, of most riders, especially those in the sun. Flip-flops, short shorts and no shirt, a bikini-clad babe on the back of the bike. The air’s 40 í C, the pavement’s 60 í C, the exhaust pipes are 100 íC, the asphalt is melting. The bike weighs 250 kilos without riders, 400 if it leans a little, 1000 if it leans too far. One tiny mistake and you’re down, surfing cement with your skin. You don’t even have to make a mistake. I didn’t make a mistake. I was riding in my own lane, in broad daylight, on a perfect road.
Motorcycle Lesson Number One
You’re invisible. Most drivers don’t see you. They don’t care about you. You’re smaller. You’re a nuisance. If you’re male, some drivers are probably out to get you so there’s no chance you will ever date their daughter. You ride like the wind…invisible.
Number Two
Random events beyond the rider’s control are constant. At 100 kph, how does your head survive a stone thrown up by a car slamming into The Emperor’s New Helmet? How about a strip of steel-belted truck tyre raking your naked thigh? Huge American June bugs smacking into my visor sound like gunshots and knock back my head an inch. With no helmet, how would you feel with a gigantic Asian insect passing through the cheek? “Disfigured man in stable condition with semi-conscious rhinoceros beetle imbedded in tonsil.”
One and Two Make Three
Wear protective gear, please. If not for you, do it for those who love you, especially if you’re on a big bike going fast on a big, bad road. Top of the list? Top of the head: a full-face helmet made from material stronger than plastic yogurt containers. Fact: 20% of head injuries are on the chin and that’s a one-way ticket on the ugly train. Yes, to some folks I’m definitely not cool with all the protective gear, but today, I’m definitely alive.
On Day Six the hospital road gets better although I feel like I’ve been here forever. Visitors and sleep come and go. Nurses always come and go with more blood. Cards and flowers fill up the room. The phone rings often. Sometimes I can figure out where it is and maybe get to it by the 37th ring.
How am I? Hmmm
Neck broken, foot fractured, pelvis in pieces, can’t ride, can’t walk, can’t dance, can’t hike, skate, ski, dive, exercise, garden, play Frisbee or have sex even if there was someone to have sex with. A get-well card from my aunt says,
“We’re so glad everything is going so well for you.” I laugh out loud painfully, the guffaw bashing my bruised ribs from the inside. From her perspective, since I’m not dead, everything is good. It’s all relative. Somehow I honestly feel okay. There are problem areas, but most of my body is intact and I can wipe myself again.
Next month: back home in only 9 days from impact. Scott meets Dr Ortho P.Dick and Mr Warren T. Motorcycle.
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