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Somehow, I am able to type this... The pictures do more then words ever
will. I'm lucky that the seatbelt failed and I got thrown out of the truck.
This occured on November 20th. I'm left with several broken ribs, a broken
sternum, a broken scapula, lacerated spleen, punctured lung, dislocated
shoulder, piles of road rash, and lots of bumps and bruises. But I'm still
alive.
http://s222.photobucket.com/albums/dd294/darkenedhalo/?albumview=slideshow
dodgerforlife
HOLY SHIT!
Glad you're at least sort-of okay.
Do you feel like talking about what happened? I can completely understand
if you don't.
But again, glad there wasn't anything permanently debilitating.
chris_knows
HOLY SHIT!!! What the hell happened? If you don't wanna talk about it it's
cool, but then I don't understand why you wouldn't if you started a thread
on it. Glad you're (kind of) OK dude.
Satty101
This is all that's been told to me. I can't remember the last two weeks or
so of my life right now.
It occurred during work, I was apparently driving the truck after finishing
a water well a few hours from home. Came down a small little hill, and then
the road flattened out, and then had a slight turn....from there, best they
can figure is that my truck took a nasty hop on the shitty road, tire then
caught the edge of the shoulder, dug in, and then pulled the rest of it in
with me.
Tank was found over 50 feet away from the chassis of the truck, as was the
trailer. I was thrown out at some point in time, and was left basically in
the ditch.
Apparently all I wanted to do when EMS/RCMP showed up was get up and walk
around. They wouldn't let me lmao
dodgerforlife
HOLY SH*T! Glad to hear you're alive. Wishing you a quick recovery!
Nissan_Altima
Lady luck must have been on your side. Most people would have been dead
being thrown out of the car(apart from that guy who flew out of his
Corvette as it plowed into the back of a Semi). So I guess being off work
you'll be around this forum alot whilst recovering.
fudge
Yeah, someone up there was definitely watching over me when that happened!
And yeah, I'll probably be around more for the next few months as I heal
up.
dodgerforlife
Good to hear you are ok..crash looks to have been pretty brutal.
newyorker
Good to see you are still alive, and hope you heal up nicely.
dvdrose18
Wow, glad you're okay(ish)...Judging by those pictures, you're very lucky
to be alive!
Take care and rest! :thumbs:
Cliffy
Holy crap! Haven't been on in a while so I am just reading this. I am
glad your still kickin, hope the recovery is going well.
Voda48
Thanks for the wishes guys, recovery is going well, albeit slowly lol! The
bones are basically all healed, I can finally lay down in relative comfort
these days :)
There's what appears to be more fluid in my chest cavity, so i'm running on
about a lung and a half right now, hopefully i'll get that aspirated in the
near future.
My knee and shoulder are still messed up quite a bit, have an orthopedic
referral, got to wait another two weeks for that though.
I also found out in addition to all the other bones I broke, I managed to
get compression fractures on my T9 through T12 vertebrae, so I'm really
lucky to still be walking!
dodgerforlife
Damn thats bad. The Big Guy must have really been looking down on you. Hope
you have a good and quick recovery.
speeder
WTF is with everyone randomly coming back?!?!
Glad you're doin better Dodger. It's always good to hear!:thumbs:
Satty101
Wow. Just wow. I can't begin to imagine how much pain you must have been in
for the last few months. Amazing that you survived that sort of accident,
looking at where you had been sitting. Good luck on getting fully
recovered. Just remember, as much as it is painful right after it happened,
it'll soon be a bad memory fading fast. It'll sure give you a new
perspective on living, though.
As for the big guy watching out for you? Where was he a couple moments
before, when it could have been prevented? Wasn't watching that closely,
apparently... :laughing: Seriously, there may be a reason for this pain.
When I was burned in a car fire (I was a passenger in a car that almost
literally exploded), and spent 6 months in a wheelchair, I was forced to
sell my shop and change careers. Because if that, I'm probably better off
in total. Never would have moved here and met my wife if I had stayed the
way I was going. So...
ChrisV
Doc's been pretty generous with the happy pills, but let me tell ya, when I
managed to get a few hours of sleep, and woke up with those worn off, yeah
I was hurting like hell. It's not so bad anymore, it's mostly just my
shoulder and knee that cause me pain, and as long as I'm careful with the
shoulder, it doesn't bug me much at all.
There's one picture there that shows where the drivers seat ended up,
pressed forward against the passenger side of the dash, because of the way
the cab crumpled. I'm seriously lucky that the seatbelt failed and I got
ejected, otherwise I would've been a smear that they would've had to scrape
out of that cab.
Fortunately I have no recollection of that day at all, so to be honest, I
have no idea of what it was like, and it's probably for the best, I'd hate
to relive that accident, over and over.
I can't imagine having to have gone through what you did though, but at
least some good came from your experience. I'm definitely changing my views
on life a little, and taking the accident as a royal kick in the arse to
get things in gear, seriously looking at UNM for Civil Engineering now,
chances are I'll have to hold off until the fall of 2010 to start, because
of the rehab process and whatnot, but at least it's a good place to start
changing my life up. Hell, if things go well, I might end up relocating to
there permanently, not like there's much going on here anymore, the only
thing that we have going on here is the oilfield boom that's about to
happen, and big deal, I don't want to work the patch again.
dodgerforlife
One can only assume that he realised he'd let the accident happen, and as
such decided the least he could do would be to watch over dodger from now
on, lol.
Glad the recovery is going okay, Dodger!
Cliffy
thanks god that he save ur life.
life is more important then anything for ur nearest.
take care
========
s.k
========
heresunil
Whoa, glad you're ok. That's a nasty wreck. Hope you keep recovering,
good luck with school in the future :thumbs:
jedimario
It's been over 5 months now...and things are going okay I guess. Let me
fill you in.
I guess I was wrong about the accident really. The RCMP couldn't really
figure out what happened, nobody else knows, and I sure as hell don't,
thanks to the hard hit I took to my head. Best anyone, and me(without the
influence of painkillers) can figure, is that I just came into the curve on
gravel a little too fast/hot, and the tires of the truck or trailer grabbed
the soft shoulder, and pulled me in, and away I went.
The injuries...well that's another story. The dislocated shoulder is slow
in healing, it's getting better, now I only notice the changes week to week
at best. I might be able to stretch it a little further, or might not be as
'tired' or 'sore' doing my rehab workout. It's definitely still weaker then
it was. I used to be able to lift 50+ lbs with my right arm, now I'd be
lucky to lift 15lbs.
As for my back, my x-rays last week showed that my vertebrae still have
compression in all 4 of the vertebrae. The crappy part is, that might never
change. And that's the injury that they're being most cautious about, as
obviously that can do the most damage to me long-term. So far, not a peep
has been said about surgery, and I would like to keep it that way, except
the pain/stiffness doesn't seem to be getting any better with time, and I'm
set to see an orthopedic surgeon on May 7th, who might have more answers
about it.
One other thing that became apparent after my painkillers wore off was that
my right knee was giving me problems. From what my doctor and
physiotherapist can figure, I completely tore the LCL, which is why I
probably don't always feel pain, or a grinding/popping sensation, while my
knee still gives out several times a day.
Chances are, I'll probably be sent for an MRI for all of it...my shoulder,
spine, and knee. That, combined with other tests, will hopefully give my
doctor a clear picture of what exact damage I've done to my body. I have a
two-day assessment coming up next week, in which I'll see a physician,
advanced physiotherapist, chiropractor, and psychologist.
I've got my license back...I had it suspended for nearly two months for
medical reasons, and I got my class 5 back - that is, standard
vehicles(cars and pickup trucks). I haven't pushed to get my class 1 back
yet, the equivalent of an american CDL, there's no real reason for me to
get it yet.
This past week, I had to go to 'work'. That is, I went in Friday for four
hours of bullshit paperwork. Nothing like my real job of drilling water
wells. I'm supposed to go in next week too. My schedule for next week blows
ass.....it looks like this:
Monday: Work from 8am-12pm and physio from 2pm to 5pm
Tuesday: Work from 8am-12pm
Wednesday: Multi-Assessment from 8am-Mid Afternoon
Thursday: Multi-Assessment from 8am-Mid Afternoon
Friday: Work from 8am-12pm and physio from 2pm to 5pm
Right now, things are royally screwed up for me.
My multi-assessment 'might' push for a tertiary rehab program, which would
be 5 days a week in the gym....but that's highly dependant on what the
orthopedic surgeon says, so either I'll be going to the gym every day for
6+ hours, or i'll be going to work and the gym every day, or I'll be sent
for arthroscopic surgery for the knee. Too many options for the time being,
I'm stuck in limbo until all my assessments and tests are done.
As for work... That's a mess and a half. Let's see if I can explain the
rigs.
Let's see, the truck I rolled....they replaced the truck, trailer, and
bobcat. They bought a newer truck and bobcat, and a brand new trailer.
However, the new water truck wasn't so great... So they've now bought a
brand new truck for under the drilling rig, and put the old drill rig truck
under the old water tank.
So if you can get that....
New truck, old drilling rig
Old truck from drilling rig, old water tank from old water truck
Brand new trailer, newer bobcat.
The old water truck without the tank, trailer, and bobcat, are completely
written off.
As for working itself, that's kind of an interesting thing, the bosses
wife, who is the secretary, doesn't seem too bad to deal with. However, I
don't hear the end of any of it from anybody else working there. Not
exactly the most friendly work environment ever.
Anyways, just thought I'd give you guys an update, I'll know more in a
couple weeks time once all the specialists have seen me and I've gone
through the myriad of tests.
dodgerforlife
Eh, at least you're still around to tell us what's up right?
jedimario
