One kid's story

[Fargin_Bastige]

Many times we hear statistics and they pass by us as nothing more than a number. We dehumanize these statistics and avoid the meaning behind them. Here’s the story of a statistic.

Waking up on the wet pavement, the rain beats down on his torn skin like acid. Surrounding him, are strange faces, twisted in the flashing lights to resemble his worst nightmares. He tries to scan around, but his tired muscles only allow limited movement. He turns his head to the side to catch the torn skin and bone jutting out of his leg. He squints as the blood flows, unhindered by skin, into his eyes from his gashed forehead.

His soft voice asks if his father and friend are alright. No one answers.

The lights flash rhythmically in the background. Discussions occur around him, oblivious to his presence. He can hear the sound of tires on wet asphalt at his feet, but cannot see them. He cannot lift his arms, from the weight of his muscles. A paramedic asks him if he knows where he is. He can only ask about his father.

As he’s lifted into the ambulance, he shivers uncontrollably. He can’t feel a thing but the icy cold coming over him. He talks, but nothing comes out. One of the paramedics says “He’s going into shock”. They throw blankets on him, but the cold keeps coming. All goes dark.

When he arrives at the hospital, they begin to put the needles in, but he can only feel it slightly. They cut his pants off and the pain of the jean peeling off of the torn skin is felt through the iciness. People surround him, coming into the room to perform a task and leaving as quickly as they came. All the time, the cold grips like a mother’s arms.

The injections start, dulling the pain and nauseating him. His journey into the operating rooms is a quick one. Watching the lights flow past him like mile markers, he barely hears the conversations going on around him. When he arrives at the room, doctors tell him to relax, but he’s so distant on the drugs that relaxation doesn’t occur, only faint noises register. He receives the anesthetic and begins his sleep.

As he wakes up, his face peels off of the pillow, covered in his own vomit. The tubes in his nose cause a soreness going all the way down his throat. His muscles are sore and turning his head to look at the traction device he will spend the next three months in is difficult. The room is awash in a pale orange light, the shadows jump off of the machine he has now become a part of. His stomach area is sore from the catheter that’s been put into him. It’s a dull pain. His vomit encrusted face looks around the room. There is no familiarity here, no family or friends, only the half open blinds and the orange light.

During the next week, he will eat only ice chips and get Demerol shots to dull the pain. His memory of when the doctor came in with his stepmother and told him his father died in the crash are dim and hazy, thanks to the drugs.

Over the next 2 years, he will have his leg broken 3 times to fix it. Be in a cast from his chest, down to his ankles and be unable to perform even the most menial tasks.

This is the aftermath of a drunken driving crash. A statistic to most, a memory for me.

[Krazy Hawaiian]

That was you FB?

I have a similar story myself.... I was a passenger in a VW Baja Bug. It had no seat belts. My friend the car painter who taught me how to paint was driving. We had been out doing our normal thing, partying up and cruising around. Going to a friends house on the other side of the Island we were taking a off ramp from the freeway one of those long circular ones my friend was going way too fast I tell him to slow down. He does but not enough.

The bug is pushing hard, the front tires are turned but the bug is slowly going wide. It gets to the curb at the edge of the road and it goes over it and hits grass. The grass made it go almost straight and down a embankment at a 45 degree angle its a steep embankment going from a higher level of the freeway down to a lower freeway going under the off ramp.

Luckily the car didn't roll on the way down the embankment. If it did we would have went right out and into freeway traffic as it rolled.

Instead as we were almost at the bottom where the shoulder of the freeway was a light pole rushes up at us. The car is going about 45 - 50 hits the pole at the front of the drivers door caving the body in on a diagonal towards the rear. The car stopped in a instant.

Try as I might I was unable to hold myself in the seat and was ejected out through the windshield breaking the rear view mirror off as I flew out. The old VW's had a cast metal bracket screwed onto the top of the windshield frame with 3 screws. The bracket snapped off about an inch from the base with a jagged sharp end that ripped my head open from the front hairline all the way to the crown of my head.

Then when the glass was knocked out the edge of the windshield frame the rubber gasket slipped over was like one long continuous sheet metal knife. It gave me another slice right to the bone nearly as long as the first going crosswise from above my above left eye up in my hair to above my right ear.

I also split my right ear lobe in two on something. I got a 3 inch long gash in the top of my right leg from a drywall screw that was sticking into the legwell of the car. It was holding something down in the front trunk and was too long so it stuck down a bit the sharp self drilling point opened my leg up as good as any razor could.

I was thrown with a tremendous amount of force, I landed about 20 feet away from the car in the middle of the right hand lane of the freeway! On coming traffic somehow saw me laying in the road (it was about 9pm at night) and screeching and swerving a car just missed me before the cars behind came to a stop. I was very lucky I didn't get run over!

I never lost consiousness, but was definitely dazed a bit and in shock. I sat up and instantly a literal waterfall of blood poured non stop off the top of my head down in front of me! I mean it was pouting in a wide sheet in front of my eyes.

I'm a Registered Red Cross Life Saver from my Padi Dive Master Cert so I knew I had to stop or slow the flow of blood or I would die before the ambulance arrived. The same icy cold you mentioned was coming over me from losing so much blood my body temperature was dropping.

I ripped my shirt off and folded it into a square about 10 x 10 inches and with both arms I pressed it down on top of my head. I laid back down, told one of the on lookers to elevate my legs and laid there shivering even though it was a warm 82 degree night.

My friend that was driving got some small cuts and a huge bruise where the side of the car came in against his hip and leg. He lucked out. Unfortunately I didn't.

The ambulance finally arrived and somehow they got the idea that I was driving! Asking me so many questions. I didn't say anything and they put me on a backboard strapping my head down to it, the most UNCOMFORTABLE thing you can imagaine.

The ambulance was one of the big ICU Medevac box vans it was air conditioned. I was already shivering. The AC made me twice as cold. I was SCREAMING at the paramedics to turn the fucking AC off! I mean really screaming at the top of my lungs! They said it was off and I was so cold I kept swearing at them to turn it off.

My friend was in the back on the opposite side sitting on the bed telling me it was off and to stop yelling. I felt that I needed to yell... like it was keeping me alive. I knew I was really messed up and had lost a massive amount of blood.

At the hospital I was put on 2 IV's one mixed saline and pain meds and another of whole blood. Then lots of injections all over my head that hurt like hell until the pain meds began to work.

They shaved almost my entire head. Around the gashes it hurt like hell even though they had loaded me up on pain meds.

Then the stitching started on my head. I remember hearing the needle scraping on my skull occasionally and felt the pull of each stitch on my head.

I got over 400 stitches on the top of my head....

I was getting shots in my ear and also my leg. I didn't even realize I had a gash on the top of my leg 6 inches long that tore the muscle above the knee cap nearly a inch deep!

They were stiching it inside the gash first as I sat there watching. The sight of it made me almost throw up at the sight of the inside of my leg. (they had it spread open to get to the inside. Using a thread that dissolved for the inside stitches.

They finished my leg and then did my ear. I got 270 stitches in my leg not counting the inside ones. Another 12 in my ear lobe. I'm suprised they had enough thread!

I began to feel better a few hours later but my head hurt like a gorilla was bashing me with a baseball bat. Just a constant throbbing..

I was really lucky to be alive...

This is a true story. I was about 26 years old when it happened. If I had a seatbelt my injuries would have been much less severe possibly none at all... KH

[Fargin_Bastige]

Yep, that was me.

I'm also glad you're still around. Be careful.

[ddevil0013]

wow..very powerful stuff..great read thx

[Bentley03600]

Damn.....

[ghostrider_9]

The subject is hard, but the story and writing are awesome . . . good work guys.

[Fred]

Great read man. I just wish more people would think before they drink

[blndebmbr]

Well done....VERY powerful story. Thank you for sharing this with all of us.

[Litigy]

Originally Posted by ghostrider_9

The subject is hard, but the story and writing are awesome . . . good work guys.

+1 Thanks for sharing to the both of you.

edit: Didn't mean to necro post. Got the link from FB in this thread.
http://forums.sportbikes.net/forums/...=314340&page=2

[poorracerkid]

Thank you for sharing these stories ya'll. It really makes me appreciate myself and my life.

[Ronrdrcr]

I'll play, if you want to call it that.

April 2 1985 2:43 pm

I was 7 years old and my father was a truck driver. I used to love riding in the truck with him. He had a 1973 diamond reo that he had painted himself and did a lot of other work to it also. He hauled limerock from Zephyrhills to Mulberry FL. I went on a run with him this day and would soon be the last. We were heading south on a two lane rd (98 for those who know the area) and there was a van in front of us doing 15 or 20 mph in a 55 zone. My father went to pass him and the guy turned into the trailer. We went off of the road and my dad pulled it back on. Somehow the hydraulics were activated on the trailer and the dump bed started to rise. This obviously raised the center of gravity and caused the truck to lose control and roll over. It landed on my fathers side of the truck and completely crushed it. All I remember is laying on the ground somehow still under the truck. I hit my head on the bumper trying to get out and I remember the front tire being next to me. Once I got out some people pulled up on the other side of the road and got me calmed down (apparently I was wandering aimlessly back and forth across this major road). They hid me behind a pickup truck so I couldn't see the wreckage when I heard my dad screaming for God to save him. As I tried to get a view under the truck I saw my dads truck explode into flames. Some of his friends pulled up in their trucks and tried to pull him out, a few of them getting burned all the way up their arms. My father died that day because some guy wanted to do a couple lines of coke on his way home from work. Didn't use his turn signals and didn't pay attention to his surroundings.

I know this has nothing to do with bikes, but it's my story and I thought I'd share. I have since assisted in the seizure of over 10,000lbs of cocaine while I have been in the Coast Guard and am proud to think I have saved at least one persons life.


Here's some pictures I have recently loaded to share with the story:

Ron


Before:

[Ronrdrcr]

Me and mom with the truck


And the after photos:

[Ronrdrcr]

Where I usually slept: