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Looking back we probably didn't do the right thing after hitting my head, but that's the way it was when we were racing. If you were breathing you were gonna be alright....one thing is for sure though I don't know if I could have my kid go through what I did when I was growing up.
Finally able to ride again but no where near the speed I had before. Just happy to get my driver's license back and then get to ride again. All I can say is wear all the gear you can afford and don't push it after a head injury. You only have one brain and it won't grow back!!!
Big one, racing MX: Unconscious for 2 hours, heart stopped on the way to the ER, 4 day in ICU, 6 days on the neurology floor and about an 8 year recovery total. 15K hospital bill, out of work for months, truck repossessed etc............... Even now, 22 years later, my balance is no where near as good as it was before that one.
It sucked.
The second was a doozy. I got KO'd as well as lost about 5-6 hours of memory. When I came to I was admitted and in a gown in the emergency room. I was dizzy for a while and felt generally sick to my stomach.
The third also was pretty bad. I lost again 5-7 hours of memory but felt sick and dizzy for about 2 weeks. Concussions are nothing to mess around with.
Come to find out i actually rode back to the store at HH, i dont remember a single thing! The scary part, i rode the whole rest of the weekend.
Here is a pic from the next day, notice the short front fender? i broke the fender off in the crash, so i just turned it around lol
If you look close, you can see the gash on my helmet, that is not a glare from the sun.
OH BTW: not only was the bike brand new, but so was every piece of gear i was wearing!
Thx for the reminder bud!
I did put up a good batch of vids on the homepage today, but you have prob already seen most of them.
My latest concussion happened when my 450 ran out of gas at 3 palms in Houston on the face of a big third gear wide open jump. Apparently the bike went into an endo and I hopped off about 15' up. When I landed the bike hit me in the back and then in the back of the head. I was told I got up and picked the bike up before anyone could get to me. The bike wouldnt start and someone checked the fuel and saw it was out of gas. They helped me push it back and get loaded up. According to onlookers I was acting fine and joking around but was in a real hurry to get loaded up and get of there. I left the track in my truck pulling a trailer and drove around North Houston for a couple hours, trying to get home. You see the kicker in this is that I live in Dallas, 4 hours north of the track. Any normal day I would have left the track and headed north. I was told I made about 10 calls to my dad and each time I told him the same thing, I crashed and I am heading home. He would ask where I was and each time I was a little further south than the last call. My sister, who lives in Houston, set out to find me and was able to intercept me after about 2 hours. A trip to the ER revealed some brain swelling and a broken t4 and t5.
It was 5 weeks later when I was released from the hospital. I still cannot recall anything that day between paying to get in the track and being in the hospital. When I finally came to, I was in the middle of a cat-scan, about 5 hours after the crash. I remember thinking not to freak out. I immediately knew why I was probably there but not the details about what put me there and how I got there. I posted in the forum on Houstonmotocross.com and was able to get some answers from other people who were there about the crash.
I think that I have been in this position so much that my mind automatically knows what to do to make it seem like I am ok when I am not. I know what if I jump up quick and tell everyone that I am ok that everyone will think I am ok and leave me alone. I know to load up and get dressed and leave the track. Past those things, I guess I didnt know what to do. That is why I drove around Houston lost, not knowing who I am, where I live, that I was married and had a 2 year old, where I worked, or that I rode a Suzuki! Is this the same reaction the Zach Bell had when he crashed? Did he automatically know what to say to get back on the track from years of experience?
Pit Row
Took me about a week before I felt "right" again.
Concussions are some scary things.
I could never once recall what the voice said, but I always had the feeling that the statement was the same as the last time, and it was always very familiar.
I guess this voice has to be an inner dialog of some sort; perhaps it was some internal protocol telling me to get back up.
Anyone else have something similar?
my first was playing hockey like the good Canadian I am. got nailed from behind and literally couldnt stand after. I had the worst case of spaghetti legs going. fell 4 times trying to get to the bench and couldnt see. next thing i remember is sitting in the dressing room with my dad telling me the kid who did it had his nose broken by one of my teammates.
Second one was on my bicycle, figured i could jump off a loading ramp out at the shop, being the cool guy i am i wasnt wearing a helmet, got to the top and puled the classic cartoon move falling straight down onto my head, I stumbled into the shop and one of the guys i work with thought i was playing an April fools joke, i had blood running down my face from a massive cut on my head and out my mouth from my bitten through tongue, one night in the hospital and 2 staples holding my scalp together on that one.
The next one was at a race, my first year on a 450 in Junior, I was running second with one whoops section and a corner left. figured i would quad in and make the pass, needless to say i went over the bars hard. hit head first perpendicular into the next whoop. according to my buddy who was flagging i didnt move for about 5 seconds(a la Zach Bell) woke up and finished. I vaguely remember touring the pits after trying to remember where i had parked. the came to 2 hours later sitting in a lawn chair with a medic asking me questions. apparently i had asked what happened about 12 times and kept forgetting.
ever since ive work nothing but shoeis and stopped trying kamikaze pass attempts, its worked out well so far.
I had a few on my bicycle that were pretty bad. I once thought it was a good idea to do a footplant off the side of a 1/4 pipe and land it in the street. Needless to say it didnt go off as planned and my bike shot straight up in the air and left me falling to the ground head first on asfault. I vaguely remember the drive to the hospital, puking on myself in the front seat of my moms car, had a knot on the back of my head the size of a baseball. I also had this weird high pitched ringing in my ears for about 3-4 days.
...i dont even want to get into all the hits i took to the dome during my skateboard years
I use to think it was so crazy how kinds nowadays have that helmet law while riding their bicycles, but looking back to the things we did when we were young, maybe it isnt such a bad idea?
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