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Remember (in flight) a Helicopter EMT looking down at me and saying "you're going to be alright." Get to the ER and ,in a short time, the spectator (via separate flight) is right next to me. He looks over to me and says "sorry". I look back at him and say "we're fortunate, it could've been a lot worse". He had a broken pelvis and I had a very serious concussion. Still the weirdest crash. Not a scratch, whiplash or broken bone for me, but it was definitely a rough ride recovering from the concussion.
Woke up in a lot of pain, struggled to slowly sit up and then get on my feet to get to the mule for a ride back to the pics.
My buddy was going to drive me to the hospital but I was having difficulty breathing and there was already an ambulance on the way so I agreed to wait for the EMT’s. They got me onto a stretcher, put a neck brace on and stuck me with an IV. After that shit just got worse.
3 hospitals, a handful of CT scans, lots of pain and depression, my dad by my side to help but causing unneeded stress/anxiety/panic, my buddy snuck in with beers, two surgeries and a fantastic orthopaedic surgeon who was able to fix my shoulder when it was looking very bleak. The laundry list includes broken C7 vertebrae, sternum, 6 ribs, punctured lung, tore pretty much everything in my left shoulder, left humerus was broken and shattered at the top and turn right rotator cuff/pectoral. They didn’t know if the humerus could be repaired or if I’d need a shoulder replacement. Luckily found an ambitious young ortho who wanted to give it a shot.
I’m now 2” shorter and shoulder is never going to be 100% but it’s not debilitating and doesn’t hurt every day anymore. The first year was frustrating/discouraging as progress/recovery has been very slow but after 2 years it’s better than I was told I could ever expect it to be. Still have to get x-rays every year to make sure the bone doesn’t develop necrosis but seems I’ve beaten it for now. Will likely require a shoulder replacement one day but hopefully not for many years.
Highlight of the ER was the great attentive hot nurses and my buddy with the beers the day after the crash. I was actually not feeling much pain that day as long as I was able to stay put and was not prepared for the pain that came later. Worst time of my life and I’ll never forget it.
I told him what to do, 2nd gear, don't come in too hot and just rev up the face of the ramp.
He decided 3rd was a better idea, hits the ramp and OJ's by about 25feet. Destroyed both his ankles and broke his wrist.
Threw him in the van and straight to the ER, one year later he's still having trouble with his right ankle.
Fun day..
The hospital could not cast me, so I had to stay stabilised there for a week laying in bed with dry mud in every crevis on my body.
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With rehab it’s possible. I am going to go to Tirr in Houston. They are very aggressive with rehab on spinal cord injuries and are #2 in the country.
As for the accident. It was honestly a freak deal. Just got my suspension back from Enzo and was breaking it in. Landed off a table and had a hairpin to the right. There was one main line with a large rut in it and I cut from the far outside to the inside to stay on the gas through the acceleration bumps. Next thing I know my front end slapped the bars to the stops to the right. The bike high sided and the shock unloaded on me and threw me across the track back first into that large rut. Sudden stop. Was going mid 3rd so lots of momentum.
The tech takes me back for imaging and asked how the injury happened. I explained what happened. The tech himself use to ride too. I perceed to say " yea the guy who set the suspension up set that thing up so stiff". The tech looks at me and says " who did your suspension". I said "some guy named Randy Blair who must have thought I said pro and not beginner". The tech looks at me and goes " that's my dad!". I had no idea Vincent was the tech since I didn't see his name tag. I was still pissed and remember saying something along the lines of " yea well I don't think he knew what he was doing with my bike".
We chatted for a bit about bikes and some suspension adjustments I could make to soften the bike up. As it turns out my sag was set wrong somehow causing the buck on the double. I always wonder to this day if Vincent remembers this or even told his dad. It was cool chatting with Vincent who was super chill and down to earth.
I’m getting ready to go to the line for my race and see my bro riding thru the pits while his race is still on the track – Not Good. I ask what’s up he points to his foot sticking out at a 90-degree angle ala when Langston t-boned Alessi (tho bro never crashed – just stamped it down)_ and yells he has to find the ambulance before he gets off his bike and speeds away. If it wasn’t so displaced I probably would have just gone down to the line and dealt with it after my race – but it was time to go to the ER.
I chased him down and said you don’t need an ambulance you need an Ortho lets go! We unloaded all the crap out of our truck with the intent of coming back and were off in 5 mins to Loma Linda Med Center. The ER was packed nowhere to even park. I pulled up to the ambulance off-loading area and he got out and started crawling (couldn’t even hop) thru the ER door with all his gear on! while I went to find some off-site parking. If I could have got a picture of him crawling thru the ER door that would be epic. (I’m thinking he’s not the first motocrosser to crawl thru that ER door for the exact same reason) I get back from parking and they have him in a wheelchair way off in the corner. I go up to the intake nurse and am told it’s going to be about 4-5 hours before he can even be seen.
I walk over and lie to him that he needs to psych up for maybe a 2 hour wait. Luckily he got one Vicodin (that was probably useless) from a REM local who shall remain nameless as he left the track. Normally we only take 1 or 2 pain pills the first night or so and leave the rest in our tool box – looks like we aren’t the only ones who do this. I go back to the track to get all our gear etc. Of course, it’s all organized and ready to pack – gotta love moto bros (even if their politics are all wrong!)
Back at the ER an hour later and nothing has changed, he’s still in the same spot. Screaming sick people/kids everywhere. Ended up being a classic tib-fib spiral fracture – a bunch of screws and some plumbers tape and he’s good to go – can still ski and jog.
Moral: Unless bones are sticking out, the thing to do is go to a local Urgent Care for pictures and take or email those to your Ortho the next day. Bitd when bro had his own x-ray machine we would just go to his clinic on a Sunday and take our own pics. He would say there is nothing like watching your own x-ray coming out showing a broken bone. And yes, it’s always a mtn bike accident. My local urgent care must think I’m a very unlucky bicyclist.
Last March 2019...riding in Illinois and I live in Wisconsin...snapped both my left tib/fib pretty bad. Went from the track to the local ER via ambulance about 8pm. After being X-rayed they said I need surgery ASAP and the nearest trauma center near where I live was about a 120 miles away. They said they have the ambulance ready...I said FUCK THAT. Like I want a $6,000 ambulance ride. I have insurance but I'm not stupid. I told them to immobilize the leg...give me another shot of painkiller and load me in the rear seats of my buddies truck. Got to the Oconomowoc ER around 1 AM. That was REALLLLLLY HORRIBLE. Two surgeries 8 months apart...2 plates, 30 screws and a bone graft later...I'm dam near 100%.
These are 2 of many times being sliced and diced by surgeons. Never a good time.
Me and a friend head out and he drops me off at the track. I get all his gear and truck and head off to the Hospital. He’s got a dislocated shoulder and a broken leg I think.
Riv. Gen is a rough county hospital! All kinds of people handcuffed to gurneys bleeding out with cops in the halls.
At one point they give him some Sodium Pentanol or whatever and he starts flirting with the ER doc. They wrestle his shoulder back in place while he is totally awake and 5 mins later he goes Hey! My shoulder is back in when did that happen?
At one point he wants some water but they won’t let him have it. I get why, but he’s a doctor and knows he’s not letting anyone at this hospital near him with a knife and wants a drink now! So I get him one. I explained our thoughts on the subject after being yelled at, they didn’t like that and had me physically escorted out by 2 big cops lifting me off the ground and setting my swinging legs down in the parking lot. I remember driving away thinking I HAVE to get him out of that place. Next day he was transferred to Kaiser.
My most memorable would have to be one of the times I dislocated my shoulder. Except, I don't actually remember it because they gave me Valium and Dilaudid. That combo knocks you out but lets you remain awake at the same time so they can ask you questions. I literally have no memory about it. I vaguely remember them asking if my shoulder felt like it was back in place and I had to feel with the other arm to find out.
My wife says I was crying and asking how this happened to me but I think she's full of shiz.
fast forward to release time and they had me so full of morphine I was puking and would not give me a throw up bag in the pharmacy, so I wheeled over to a heater vent and proceeded to puke in that...….fuckers
Crashed at a sat night fairground type of track.... Broken ribs, sternum, collapsed lung, bruised heart.... They held me overnight....
Get out next day about 11am.... Across from the hospital was a Chinese restaurant...... I was starving, so.....
Fast forward two hours and I had massive food poisoning.... I barfed off and on for 4 hours....
Any of you guys that have busted a rib before.... Well.... I don't have to say anymore... Lol
Was feeling so good, but tired and getting arm pump. Wasn’t gonna ride for too much longer.
Didn’t clear a tabletop jump before a double, double, step up.
Usually I used my momentum to easily clear the next set of jumps, but I was tired and riding really lazily, and I just grabbed a handful, didn’t keep any weight back so my rear tire spun when I went up the face of the jump, oh and I was also a gear too low, which kicked my back end out, somehow ended up on the other side with my 450 slamming on top of me.
Bruised ribs. Ouchy
No ER trip but seriously the ribs were annoying. Laughing, coughing, talking loud, all hurt like hell. Don’t get my started on hiccups.
And yes I know I sound like a pussy complaining about that compared to what the majority of you have experienced
Pit Row
I ended up waiting a week to go and get it looked at. The reason I decided to get it looked at was due to my hand swelling and my thumb area turning black. Turns out I had broken my scaphoid into 3 pieces,and needed to have surgery the following Wednesday. This was the latest I could get it done without the bone being too far gone. 5 months with a pinned wrist where the pins actually stuck out of my hand at all times.
Fast forward 2 years later,same place,same bike,and same bone. Granted different jump,but it was kinda odd how that worked out.
It was a cold February day and as I pulled up to bunny hop a rain rut, my chain came off and caught a pedal and slammed face first into a bunch of frozen vegetation.
Got up, shaken and my nose was all bloody so rode off to nearest hospital who took one look said I had broken my nose and to come back in 1 week if it wasn't set straight!
Got home and sneezed and this hard white stuff dropped from my nose, thinking it was a shard of bone, but on closer inspection seemed fibrous .
Went back to ER and they finally x rayed it to show I had an approx 3 inch section of frozen cow grass stem wedged through my septum.
We then had to travel 30 miles to Crewe hospital to see specialist who got some of his junior doctors to come in to see such a strange injury. Eventually they operated at 10pm removed stem, stitched two 8 inch rubber splints into bottom of my nose and packed yards of lanolin tape up each nostril.
After 2 week went back to have splints and tape out Healed up well have a small hole in septum that whistles sometimes when I breath, but definitely the most painful injury I ever had.
Spun up the face of a big jump and shorted, Tib/Fib fractured in 17 places and my foot was turned around backwards.
But that was nothing as compared to the beating I got that day in the ER at Inland Valley Medical center, where they tried to pull my boot off my mangled leg instead of cutting it off, before the pain meds kicked in.
At the hospital they didnt cast me at first because they didnt see the fracture, but i found out that i was allergic to morphine and spent the next 27 hours vomiting, ended up at the ER again after 2 weeks of pain and finally got a CT scan and 8 weeks with a cast.
Later that year i got trouble with my nerves and muscles in my hand so they decided to cut up both my arms (why not both when were at it) and the tissue around my forearm because the muscles were damaged in the crash, spent another 5 weeks with my arms locked in place to not rupture anything while they healed, its safe to say my boss wasnt too impressed that year
Still 3 weeks with crutches..
Crashed a 100 foot table in Hallsberg, Sweden, landed short, bounced off and bike turned in the air, broke my ankle and first big toe joint.
This was the beginning if the season so no riding for me at all that summer. Saved up that much money by not riding I thought I'd take my arse down to Australia to visit friends I hadn't seen in years.
Met a girl, who was from the US and studied in Sydney. Moved down and when she was done with her degree we moved to the USA, got married and that's how I'm now sitting in Missouri.
Memorial day, 2013.
I stayed up all night doing an engine swap in my son's RM85, and my friend that does our suspension offered to revalve it and freshen everything up. By the time I finished assembling everything and turned in for bed, it was well past midnight. I am not a night person, and this fact would come back to haunt me.
The next day my son was flying around the local track in Tulare, I planned on staying for a bit before heading to work. He disappeared on the other side of the track, but didn't re-appear. I figured he stopped to help some kid up that fell down. A minute or so later I still hadn't seen him, but I noticed there were several other adults running, with purpose, toward the area that he was in. An odd feeling crept over me and I began running to that side of the track.
When I arrived my son was laying by the side of the track with several adults crowded around him. The crash occurred in a section with high speed rollers, 5th gear pretty well wound out on his 85. Still, unless someone cut him off, there was no reason that he would crash there. Perplexed, I asked him how he was doing. I vaguely remember him telling me he hurt all over, and that his back really hurt. He also told me he had no idea why he crashed.
Confused, I walked over to look at the bike. What I saw sent chills through my body, and I immediately felt ill.
If you look closely, you can see that the top bolts for the triple clamps are missing. In an instant, I knew what happened. In my sleep deprived state, I neglected to tighten the triple clamp bolts. The crash was my fault entirely.
A bystander told me what happened, he said my son was flying through the rollers, then the bike simply exploded like it hit a land mine, launching my boy 30+ feet straight up in the air. The clamp had given way on one roller, and when the front tire touched down on the next one, it was pointing hard to the left, not straight ahead. The front end of the bike stopped immediately, ripping the front axle's nut clean off while bending the axle. Instantly ejecting my son, the bike continued to spin in the air, eventually landing upside down on the rear tire with so much force it ripped the shock shaft out of the piston.
The consensus was that he needed a trip to the ER, and I decided that since he was able to walk, I would just drive him there. He was still hunched over, complaining mostly of back pain, but all his appendages were functioning. On the drive to the hospital, I asked him to describe exactly what hurt, and where it hurt. Once he did so I told him he had a broken back, as the pinpointed burning sensation he described was telling to me. He said no way, it couldn't be that bad. I was really hoping that he was correct and I was wrong.
Unfortunately, the x-ray showed compression fractures in T-6 and T-8. Sometimes it really sucks to be right, and this was one of those times. While waiting at our local hospital, they had him hooked up to a bunch of monitors, but one of the monitors keep sounding an alarm and the nurse would run back in, check his heart rate, look at him funny, and walk back out. After about three times she asked if he normally had a low heart rate, as the 40-45 bpm was freaking the instruments out. I said that between motocross, judo and wrestling, he was in pretty darn good shape, and had a normal resting heart rate in the low to mid 30's. They took the finger monitor off and told me to let them know if something was happening. Then they ordered up an ambulance to take him to the hospital in Fresno. I met him there.
In Fresno they x-rayed him again and found that T-9 was also fractured. They ordered a CT scan for his head and a neurologist decided he'd be staying the night there so they could continue to check his vitals. Fortunately I was able to talk the doctor into letting me stay with my son.
I asked my son about the accident, and he remembered it all. He said the wheel kept turning to the left when it would contact the next roller until it was way too far to control and bike simply launched him straight up; it felt like he was higher than the roof of a house. On the way back to earth, he ended up going in head first. At this point in life my fifteen year old had been a very competitive judo fighter for eight years, having already won multiple state and national titles. He was also very adept at doing what we call a "judo roll," which is just a shoulder roll. When he was just a couple years into judo, I adopted a practice of chucking him up in the air so he could figure out a way to safely roll out of it. Turns out that was very good practice, as he hit the ground and went straight into a judo roll. Although the impact was enough to break his back despite wearing a RXR chest protector, we have no doubt that without his practice in falling through judo, he'd be dead or in a wheelchair. He told me that shortly after rolling to a stop he thought that he'd have to put a lot more effort into school since he couldn't feel his legs for a few minutes.
We left the next day with my son in a back brace, and came home to discover that some thieving porch pirate had stolen the UPS package containing a new RXR protector. A couple of return doctor visits to make sure no neurological damage had been done, and he was headed back to high school in the brace. He never took any pain pills, and in about three months shed the back brace. Once October rolled around he started right back in wrestling, and even earned a silver at that year's Judo Winter Nationals. Today all that remains is the infrequent aching in those three vertebra, although he tells me correct posture when sitting in a chair really helps reduce the discomfort.
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