My car wreck and what has happened

[tinythief]

This is a recap of what has happened to me over the past 6 months, I hope this helps someone.


Labor day weekend 2011,I am on my way back to hidden falls off road park outside of marble falls. I am coming from town after getting my tires replaced. I get into a car accident. Details are sketchy but it is believe that my front driveshaft broke on my 03 jeep wrangler. The driveshaft pole vaulted the jeep causing it to flip a few times and land tires upward.

A fellow wheeler is the first to spot me, he calls for help. Cops show up and help, they laid cardboard under me to protect me from the hot road. They then use a high lift to lift the jeep up, and pulled me out. Because of the wind, ems was not able to air life / heli-vac me to the hospital. Because of that, I was taken in an ambulance to round rock.

After a week I wake up in ICU. Everything is a blur and I’m groggy as hell. My breathing tube gets taken out, I can barely whisper. My mum and step-dad are there. I am told what happen, the accident/ jeep totaled/ my injuries. I fall back to sleep. I get a surprise visit from a friend, his from my jeep club. He brings his family and they cheered me up. His little girls gave me a stuffed orange owl to keep me company.

Over the next few days, the sedation wears off. I stay awake longer and I’m able feel my body parts. My whole body aches and will barely move. My left arm is enclosed in a blue foam block, unable to move at all. Mum feeds me soup or juice but I barely eat. When I do try, all I feel is pain in my jaw and teeth. This is when I find out my jaw and teeth are broken.

This is around the second week I am awake, I still can’t sit up. I had to use the rest room, here I am introduced to the bed pan. To do my other business, I learnt that I had a tube stuck in my privates. I wake up often in the nights, not knowing where I am and why I can’t move.

My third week in the hospital, it kind of improves from here. I am able to sit up with little help; there is an improvement in sleeping. I learn that if I sat up too fast or rested my head at an angle the room would spin badly. This was also when I get my first wound vac change. The nurse removes my hand from the foam block. As he does it, I see a tube filled with what looks like blood. A little machine catches the drainage. He pulls off the tape and dressing on my hand, it reveals a nasty gash. It stretches from the middle of my palm, through the underside of my arm and ends at my elbow. There are about ten stiches in the palm and another 10 at the elbow. In the middle is a gap that spans the width of my arm, in it I see my tendon, tissue and muscles. Morphine and pain killers did their job; I did not feel much pain. The nurse cleans it with a liquid and replaces the dressing. Lastly, he reconnects the drainage tube to the machine and turns it on.

Wound cleaning happens every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. This continues even after I leave the hospital.

Over the last two weeks of my hospital stay, gets more interesting. I slowly relearn how to walk, the process is painfully slow. The first few times I stood up, I had a lot of help. My body was limp from the weeks in bed, my dizziness did not help. I would lose my balance instantly. Over the days I could take several assisted steps, my first was to the window. The view was amazing. I was soon able to walk to the bathroom assisted. Pee tube was also pulled.

Mum was awesome; she pushed me outside in a wheel chair. The warmth of the sun was breath taking; we did not stay outside long. Because of all the weight I lost, even a gentle breeze at 70F degrees was freezing.

The same nurse that changes my wound dressings would also take me on walks around my floor. At first, it was barely a hundred yards. Soon I was able to complete a round then two. It was tiring yet a welcomed change. Unfortunately, this was all on hospital grade pain killers.

I was discharged after roughly 2 months in the hospital. To put it nicely, the pain killers at home sucked. The whole body would ache and I was always cold.

Food consisted of what mum could get her hands on and blend, milk never tasted so good.
Fast forward to a month after I was discharged, I went back to get my jaw unwired and stiches removed. It was here I made the worst mistake of my life, I forgot to take my pain killers before seeing the doc. That trip was shitty.

I got temporary crowns and I was able to eat solid food, this resulted in my first major visit to the restroom. It was the equal to eating MRE’s for a month.

Around November I got the wound vac off. The difference is amazing. The wound is 90% closed. The 10% is a patch where skin is still slowly growing back. The only wound dressing needed is some gauze and tape.

It is about a week later that I no longer need to cover my hand, instead of a gaping wound now rests a winding scar. Now that it has closed, I had to focus on therapy. My hand movements were getting slightly better. In the beginning I could only twitch my fingers. Now I can barely bend them.
Now, I can grip certain items. My left hand is able to open a car door or even the fridge. There is decent grip and feeling is coming back to it. A nerve test shows that there is around 50% improvement from a month ago.

Therapy still has to continue but the outlook is good.


My injury list, from the accident:
Punctured or collapsed lung from broken ribs
Broken ribs, left side
Crushed hand, doc had to cut it open to relieve the pressure. Left arm
( nerve damage, currently 20 or 30% use of hand. Predicted 80 or 90% when fully recovered)
Fractured or broken shoulder
Skull fracture
Broken jaw
Broken teeth, jaw sewn shut for a total of 1 month
10% loss of hearing in the right ear, it now rings constantly

*below is a link to my photo bucket album with the pics of the wreck and several recovery pics*
WARNING!!! NOT WORK SAFE/ GRUESOME/ BLOOD
http://s217.photobucket.com/albums/cc19 ... he%20flip/

[CB4]

Wow, thanks for sharing. I cannot even imagine how hard it must've been / still is going through all that. I hope the remainder of your recovery is swift.

[Viper shtf]

Holy jesusfuck dude, I hope you get better.

[leadpulaski]

I am glad you are alive and hope your recovery is quick.

How did the drive line fail? Was it stock or were there aftermarket parts/mods? Based on the before pictures it looks lifted

[AwPhuch]

Pics or it didn't happen....j/k

Glad you are ok and recovered...hope you are doing good

[tinythief]

I am glad you are alive and hope your recovery is quick.

How did the drive line fail? Was it stock or were there aftermarket parts/mods? Based on the before pictures it looks lifted

Thanks for all the encouragement.

It had a 2"spring spacer and 32" on it. I added some armour, a new slip york eliminator and new control arms to it. I think it was the u-joint, but no one knows.

[crypto]

So, did you get ejected from the vehicle, or what?

[BigDaddyTX]

Were you wearing a seat belt?

[tinythief]

Yes sir. Seat belt was on, always has and always will be

[warlock4u]

Good to hear you are getting better.

Is it just me, or does it look to anyone else like the roll cage failed to do its job pretty spectacularly?

[pelab]

Stay strong buddy

[Dr Jekell]

Is it just me, or does it look to anyone else like the roll cage failed to do its job pretty spectacularly?

He is still alive isn't he?

That is what a roll cage is for, to reduce the chances of death during a rollover.

[tinythief]

Is it just me, or does it look to anyone else like the roll cage failed to do its job pretty spectacularly?

He is still alive isn't he?

That is what a roll cage is for, to reduce the chances of death during a rollover.

It's more of a roll bar in my opinion, it supports the factory soft top. Being factory, it did a better job than most would think. I would have preferred more support at the windshield but, I'm still here

[Trident]

Incredible photos of your arm/wrist injury!
May you continue to heal well and experience amazing and breathtaking joy each day.
Looks like a sweetie of a dog on your legs in the one photo.
Thank God for awesome Mums, eh...!

[Regular Guy]

Wow. Just wow. Glad to hear you are recovering.

The front drive shaft just failed? I'd lawyer up, that Jeep looks pretty new. That sounds quite fishy. Not fishy like you did anything wrong but fishy as in somethings not right there. If you have the energy, I'd look into that if not for the sole purpose of helping Jeep avoid/fix that issue with their Jeeps.

[Fletch]

Holy jesusfuck dude, I hope you get better.

Literally, this was what ran through my head

[44Dave]

Wow. Just wow. Glad to hear you are recovering.

The front drive shaft just failed? I'd lawyer up, that Jeep looks pretty new. That sounds quite fishy. Not fishy like you did anything wrong but fishy as in somethings not right there. If you have the energy, I'd look into that if not for the sole purpose of helping Jeep avoid/fix that issue with their Jeeps.

I'd bet he hasn't got much leverage since there are after market parts on the jeep. Not saying he did anything wrong, but lawyers would point to that and say their liability ended when he changed the design.

[tinythief]

Wow. Just wow. Glad to hear you are recovering.

The front drive shaft just failed? I'd lawyer up, that Jeep looks pretty new. That sounds quite fishy. Not fishy like you did anything wrong but fishy as in somethings not right there. If you have the energy, I'd look into that if not for the sole purpose of helping Jeep avoid/fix that issue with their Jeeps.

I'd bet he hasn't got much leverage since there are after market parts on the jeep. Not saying he did anything wrong, but lawyers would point to that and say their liability ended when he changed the design.

That and that the jeep was crushed afew weeks after the accident. I don't want to dig up old issues, just wanna get up and driving in another jeep( with a proper cage)

[Buck]

Holy crap dude!
I remember hearing about that when it happened, Houston Jeep People meetup, Marble Falls trip... Wow, Glad to hear your doing better. I hope you can get back to Jeepin' in the near future.
I'm checking my U-joints in the morning!

[Artiz]

I'm taking back my "back pain" complaints of today...

Holy shit!

Hope you get a (almost) full recovery.

[tinythief]

(WARNING HAS GORE, Not really but just for people who feel squeamish)
Been neglecting this thread a bit,it's picture time!!!!!

Bout a month ago I went for surgery again. It was to remove some scar tissue.

Before Op:
http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc19 ... G_0374.jpg

After: all wrapped up like a Christmas present. The tube you see is acting like a vacuum to suck out the access blood, it goes through the skin somewhere near my elbow and the line ends at my wrist.
http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc19 ... 8eb20c.jpg

Unwrapped: Note the white tape/ stri-strips. Used to "hold" the wound together. And to my discovery, I was allergic to. Whole arm swelled and wept (leaked liquid)
http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc19 ... 076787.jpg

Today: The darker areas were where the skin blistered and eventually died off. The removal allows more flex , documented by in therapy by as much as 15 degrees in some areas.
http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc19 ... 1ad81e.jpg

Side note: General anesthesia messes with your brain. After the surgery itself, I slept all the way through the 2 hour recovery time and pretty much the rest of the day. I would wake up when I was talked to and doze off shortly after. For the next few days all i wanted to do was sleep. The brain itself felt exhausted.

Side note besides side note: Ya'll emt's/nurses/docs/medics/people in the medical world are awesome, keep doing what you do and don't let us crazy patients discourage you. Thanks for saving my life and many others.

[Regular Guy]

WOW! Looking good man. I'm glad to see you're recovering.

[DJH]

yeah stock roll cages in Jeeps are better than nothing but pretty inadequate. The first thing I'd do with a jeep is replace that cage with one that goes from frame/floor to the top in front instead of mounting to the windshield. (maybe new jeeps have that. I don't really have much experience with ones newer than '94.)

[tinythief]

@ regular guy, thank you

@ DJH, Jeep hasn't changed the design of their roll cages yet. I guess that's why the after market is growing so well.