WHEEL WORLD NEWS
February 2018
12
Moments after I hit the car, a Trauma Nurse who was stuck in the traffic came to my rescue. She revived me and kept me breathing until Paramedics came. I was then rushed to the Trauma Center at John C Lincoln Hospital where I underwent surgery to remove a blood clot from my brain and then placed in traction for a few days before being bolted to a Halo for 14 weeks. I spent the first few days in ICU brain dead. According to the Glasgow Coma scale, I measured a 3 (completely unresponsive) which is the lowest you can be with a heart still beating. About a week later with my family by my side I began to open my eyes and communicate by blinking when they pointed to letters and numbers on an Index card. It took forever to communicate, but it was a huge step forward. The first thing I spelled out was “WATER” because after a week with breathing tubes in my mouth, my tongue felt like sand paper. Water had never tasted so good, even though it was just from wet swabs since I couldn’t drink yet.
On November 9th I was transported to Good Samaritan Rehab on McDowell Rd where I started Physical, Occupational, Recreational, and Speech Therapy. The nurses and therapists were awesome and helped me improve on a daily basis. My mother stayed in my apartment in Phoenix and was by my side every day helping me adjust to my new life. In February 1996 I had to leave Arizona and fly back to NY where my family lives and health insurance is far better. Once I arrived, I spent one night in my parents’ house and then went to Helen Hayes Hospital for further rehabilitation. It was those couple of months where I made a lot more progress and was ready to go home just in time for my 22nd birthday.
I started attending morning classes at Motorcycle school in early September 1995 while working at Denny’s in the evening. I met a lot of great people, started dating a girl I worked with, and was doing great in school. My life was exactly how I had dreamed of it being… until 12:16pm on October 24th, 1995 when my 21 year old life came to a screeching halt… literally!
A friend and I were next to each other on our motorcycles facing south on 35th Ave here in Phoenix. We both turned West on Thunderbird Rd and 500ft later an old man heading Eastbound cut across our lane and stopped. My friend was able to get around the front of his car and I would have been able to swerve around the back if he continued across, but he was stopped. In a panic I locked the brakes up a little too much and I went down. I slid on my (protected) hands & feet for 50ft and slammed into the front right fender head-first without a helmet, leaving a significant sized dent.