a year and a day since my crash....

[guru_1071]

well, 9 dec 2007 wasnt a good day for me, after i crashed my saxo (i hit a bridge and it ripped the car into bits, fortunalty my bother (who i was following home) saw me in his mirrors and turned round and stopped. he actually pulled me out the car becasue of the smell of petrol and called the ambulance, if i had been on my one and not found for a while it would have been worse).

It was a little touch and go, as both the police and the ambulance thought it was a fatal accident. the ambulance people actually came looking for me in a&e later that night to see if i was still alive (and it funny, that memory of the lady paramedic leaning over me in a&e wishing me well is crystal clear!) the next few days are a blur of various people fussing and shouting at me.

at one point they even considered having to remove my lh leg below the knee due to the damage to the leg and foot, it got a bit messy later when the skin graft failed and my foot went greeny blue and started to smell, then amazinly (over a few weeks) it healed and they didnt need to do another graft.

after spending 2 weeks in hospital (where the care and staff where 100%), including a three day (i think) stay in a high dependancy unit (after a second stint in theatre, the first was 7 hours, the second 11 hours, my blood was deoxygenated (i think thats correct) i was sent home - still very poorly, but the beds where needed for the xmas rush - i also suspect that they get people out asap due to the worry of mrsa etc.

so, i had christmas day at home, in bed (and unconcious mainly, due to wild painkillers) for the month i had daily visits from district nurses to dress my wounds (another fantastic and caring service)

during the first couple of months i had many visits to various hospitals, the main one for bones, another for the plastic surgery to my foot, and another for physio.

4 months after the crash i finaly managed (to the amazment of the consultant) to walk (okayish) without the need for a stick, and to return to work.

since ive returned to work ive had a couple of vists for x-rays and what not, finally yesterday i was discharged by the consultant - once agin he underlined to me how pleased he was with my progress and how having a positive frame of mind has helped me, he said so many people just give up and resign them selves to a life of incapacity benefits and moaning that its good to see a positive result.

i still ache, and have to be carefull, but am driving a manual car again (after starting in a wheel chair adapted auto), not yet racing my mini, but if i get my fitness up to an acceptable level im sure i will again.

so, a big thanks and a merry xmas goes to all the staff on ward 9 of hull royal infirmary, the staff in a&e, the physio girls, the nurses in the bones day surgery, the nurses at the castle hill plastics place, the district nurses who came to my house, the ambulance staff, the fire staff, the police, the physios at Beverley westwood, a big thanks to mr Gopal (bones) and mr Hart (plastics) who where my consultants.

and the biggest thanks of all go to my family, who went to hell and back, and made some real sacrifices this year as i recovered.

my list of damage....

broken lh fibia - two places, one a compound fracture
broken lh tibia - two places
broken rh humerous - two places
dislocated lh shoulder
various broken toes and metertarsals in rh foot (plus strange hammer and sickle scar where something punched through the top)
all broken toes and metertarsals in lh foot
all skin and meat ripped of top of lh foot (ouch!)
very bad deep brusing down rh side of body
oh, and one black eye.

my arm and leg have been 'nailed' these will stay in for ever, my lh foot was wired up, with wire poking out, due to the problems with the skin graft the new skin grew over the wires, so rather than pull them out with me concious, i had to go back into theatre later to have them done, another day in hospital!



so, all who have taken the time to read this, drive carfully, its not the driving fast or stupid that gets you, its the driving down familiar roads, not really paying the attention that you should that gets you!

have a good christams - i will this year!

[guru_1071]

james_tigerwoods said:

Wow - a sobering story. What was the ultimate cause of the accident?

Hope your recovery is complete - Any mental issues as a result of this?

every thing is a little blured (bar the odd really clear memory) from that night.

we had gone out for our tea (to meet my sisters new boyfriend) and i had had a really bad migrane all day, as a result id had a few nurofen and should have gone to bed), we had our tea and drove about 8 miles home, me in my saxo, my brother in his diesel chugger. the entire journey i followed him - it was raining, and as we share a race car we have nothing to prove on the roads.

where i crashed was about a minuites drive from home, its a bad set of bends that are well known locally for crashes, when it rains the road floods at the start of the bend, i think i drove through the flood, and this spat my car onto the other side of the road, at this point i realised that a car was comming, and mindfull of the amount of head ons on this bend i swerved to the left, mainly due the last two bad accidents occouring where people had gone to the right.

this was a fairly subconcious choice, the car jinked, i corrected it, the trouble got worse when it got onto the grass (which is fairly wide), the car span, and i remember thinking 'im ok, im on the grass, i can save this, once im back on the tarmac it will be ok' then, just at the point of joining the road (still sideways and not having slowed on the wet grass) i hit one of those channels that they dig to drain water away, this bounced the car into the air a bit and i then it the bridge. the end of the bridge looks to have hit the car on the point of the rh wheel, then the car has bounced around and bent all the rh side in (you can see the 'tide mark' from the bridge top along the flank.

the remains of the car then slithered along for about another 20 feet or so.

the rh wheel, rh strut, rh inner wing, lh inner wing, bulkhead etc vanished in bits, the engine and box hooked out and bounced down the road.

the ironic thing is that the car i swerved to avoid hit some debries and then the fire brigade wrote it off ripping the bonnet open to disconect the battery!

as for speed, i doubt i was doing more than 70, the police decided 'excessive speed' was the fault, they believe that in the conditions (light rain) i should have slowed to 40mph. i cannot really argue with that.

i know from many years of driving round these bends that in the wet 70 is about the max, in the dry a little more, but it has to be light - in the dark its a no-no.

for a while the police where desperate to prove 'racing on the public highway' or 'mechanical defect' however i was lucky in the the car had a virtually fresh mot (and 12 months tax - rats) and four newish matched decent tyres etc - it was inspected and no faults where found. both my brother and i defended the 'racing' claim, as well as various witness staments from other people who where following or had seen us. i think that i was able to argue that i had followed, at a distance in a 'high powered hot hatch (the polices words) for so many miles that they dropped it.

since my accident there has been two more, one doing nearly what i did, but the guy swerved right, not left, he went through a hedge and dropped 15 feet into a water filled ditch, missing the bridge by inches.

ive no mental problems (more than before!) i always knew i would return to work and walk, even when i was forcing myselft to walk round and round our garden on my crutches.

the best thing to come out of this was that my sister and her boyfriend had {ahem) other things on their minds, and as a result i have a neice and my parents have their first grandchild!!!

[guru_1071]

my brother pulled me out the drivers side rear window (well the hole where it was) when i came round i knew i was hurt, i remember looking down at my rh arm and it looked like a bendy snake, at the time i didnt even realise the door was as bad as it was.



heres the engine, i dont think its much use now!

[guru_1071]

The_Doc said:

and you know I'm joking here, best wishes to you mate, how about a nice gift for the nurses who looked after you in Hull Royal. They do the hard work and it will make Xmas nicer for them

Will.


and, with a smile, I'm still not impressed by your injuries...

will

dont worry, theres a 'tea break in a box' getting posted to them!

and, im sure you a doc you see far worse then i had, and i take my hat off to you.

the most disturbing thing i witnessed (and when your stuck on a bed with both legs in pot and both arms strapped across your chest (i couldnt read or even watch t.v - thank god for perving at nurses!) all you can do is watch other people) is the amount of abuse nurses and doctors get from paitents and visitors is unreal., i can understand fear, pain and ignorance bring the worse out of people, but its staggering how vile some people can be, and heart warming how the nurses cope with it.

rich

[guru_1071]

Marc W said:

I had wondered why I hadn't seen you out in the Mini in the heritage series this year, as your was always one of the cars I'd look out for to get some shots. Very glad to hear that you've recovered.

Hope you do decide to take the mini out again, but it would be perfectly understandable if you decided against it.

If someone had shown me that photo I'd never have thought anyone would have survived it. Once again very happy to hear that you've recovered from it.

marc

all been well i do hope to be out competing next year, i am more aware of my mortality than i was before (id always considered my self to be a safe and cautious driver on the road, even more so now)

getting out next year depends on money and fitness, ive only driven the car once since and nearly pulled my shoulder back out when the diff gripped. i think electic power steering may be on the cards if the shoulder cant hack it.

all been well im gouing to do the odd hscc round, its cheaper and the races are shorter, so shouldnt be as knackering!

glad to see someone keeps their eye out for my mini!

Edited by guru_1071 on Thursday 11th December 14:08

[guru_1071]

m3psm said:

Ouch

Amazing recovery in only a year.

I'm currently laid up with broken fibula (2 places) and tibia after a bike crash, so although to a much lesser scale, have an idea what you've been through.

Didn't have mine pinned so healing of the breaks takes a little longer, but learning to walk again now. Your story encourages me to suck up the pain and get on with it though. Cheers.

it gets better with time! when i was in there was a young lad who had come of a scooter and boken is leg in about 16 places. as he was still growing he was in a cast and had been in hospital for about 2 months. his parents hardly came to see him and he was going stir crazy!

one trick i tried (and there is no medical sense behind this) was that once i could walk with one stick only, i used to do 20 min walking round the lawn (then if i fell over it was soft) carrying a car battery by the handle. sounds daft i know, but the weight of the battery helped with the 'lurch' of my walk. i found that i could use the stick with my lh arm (which had the dislocated shoulder) to help my lh leg (broken) and the battery in my rh arm (broken) to counter the swing of my body.

i didnt have any pots obviously and was slow because of my feets, but with gritted teeth i could do a couple of laps almost with no limp - without the weight of the battery i staggered forwards like a druken perpetual motion machine.....

[guru_1071]

drfrank said:

Glad to hear you are OK

Also, very good of you to thank the NHS staff who helped you, we come in for an awful lot of stick and not much praise, so thank you.

Having worked at Castle Hill with Mr Hart and the rest of the plastic surgery nurses I know how good they truly are.

The thread also highlights the fact that plastic surgery is not just boobs and face lifts (we do actually save lives and limbs)

Get well and happy christmas

drfrank

the thing about mt hart that really humbled me was when the nurse who looked after my foot told me that he spends all his holiday abroad doing charity work for children with harelips and what not. he was a real gent, very reasuring, when in my deepest time of worry, he simply said 'dont worry lad, we will have you walking again'

the other thing about him that always made me smile was that he was a big bloke, red faced and looked all the world as if he was a farmer. he didnt have 'surgeons hands'!

good to see im not the only pher who has been through the doors of hri, castle hill and the westwood!