5 years today since my wreck

[Vprbite]

Today marks 5 years since I wrecked my 02 avoiding that minivan that crossed a double yellow. I want to take this time to acknowledge all the incredible support I received and continue to recieve from the Viper community. Not a day went by in the 6 weeks I was in the hospital and 6 weeks of inpatient physical therapy that I wasn't getting phone calls, emails, text messages, and gifts from someone in the club. Even people in other regions who had never met me were reaching out to help. I can't thank you enough for your generosity and kindness. I don't think I would be doing as well as I am if I didn't have all your great support. This group of people is absolutely amazing and continues to impress me with the caliber of person here.


I do want to give a special thanks to Jon B, Maurice, and the Arizona region for really going above and beyond to help get me back on my feet, or foot as it were : )

I couldn't have done it without you guys. I hope to give back as much as I have gotten from this club.

[poptarts]

wow glad your ok. got any pics of your wreck? i wasn't a member on the forum then and what caused the minivan to be over the line? your guardian angel was with you and god was looking out for ya.

[Vipes]

I'm glad you've stayed positive and have bounced back into a stronger person. Was the van driver distracted by something?

[Vprbite]

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She had her 2 young daughters in the car, which is why im extra glad I was able to avoid them. Even though I wasn't doing anything wrong, I would have felt awful if I had hurt children.

She was distracted by the kids it would seem. She wasn't drunk or high or anything. It was simply a confluence of events.

[Vipes]

Wow, that's amazing you survived. What a selfless act to avoid them. I'm glad you recovered well from that!

[poptarts]

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She had her 2 young daughters in the car, which is why im extra glad I was able to avoid them. Even though I wasn't doing anything wrong, I would have felt awful if I had hurt children.

She was distracted by the kids it would seem. She wasn't drunk or high or anything. It was simply a confluence of events.

You have a great guardian angel... holy crap. What did you hit or did it roll? What were your injuries

[Vprbite]

You have a great guardian angel... holy crap. What did you hit or did it roll? What were your injuries

I hit a tree. You can see the the perfect outline of it in the last photo. That's the driver's side sill. If was stuck in the car for 3.5 hours because I was pinched in there so hard. I was lucky not to die in the car while stuck there.

Injuries were left leg amputation (due to sever crush injury). Torn ligaments in right ankle and nerve damage. Right knee: fully torn ACL, fully torn PCL, partial tear MCL, buckethandle tear medial meniscus. Left hand: fracture in thumb and first digit, soft tissue damage to left wrist. (Read: Arthritis). Also there was decent traumatic brain injury that still causes problems that I am working on.

Also often times my whole body just hurts. That is from the general blunt force trauma to the body. So my shoulders and elbows hurt as well on certain days.

[poptarts]

I hit a tree. You can see the the perfect outline of it in the last photo. That's the driver's side sill. If was stuck in the car for 3.5 hours because I was pinched in there so hard. I was lucky not to die in the car while stuck there.

Injuries were left leg amputation (due to sever crush injury). Torn ligaments in right ankle and nerve damage. Right knee: fully torn ACL, fully torn PCL, partial tear MCL, buckethandle tear medial meniscus. Left hand: fracture in thumb and first digit, soft tissue damage to left wrist. (Read: Arthritis). Also there was decent traumatic brain injury that still causes problems that I am working on.

Also often times my whole body just hurts. That is from the general blunt force trauma to the body. So my shoulders and elbows hurt as well on certain days.

Wow. That is absolutely crazy. I couldn't imagine what it was like.you have a great attitude about it. You seem to be a glass half full type of guy. Glad you are ok. How fast were you going? And I do see the tree in the last pic. Wow. So I have a friend who lost her arm in high school. She said there are times when she get random feelings from the nerves. Sometimes she feels like tickles or sometimes pain in her body where she says is her left hand but it's been gone since middle school.

[Vprbite]

Thanks. Well my attitude and outlook on things is a direct result of the amazing support I had from people in my life and on here. As I said, I never felt alone. I looked at the situation and said its time to get to work. But I always had people around to remind me why I was working and what I was capable of. Part of it though is I said to myself "I am gonna kick this things ass. I want my doctors and therapists talking about me for years, dammit." So that was part of my motivation. Plus I knew that the harder I busted ass in the beginning the better my quality of life would be in the future. So that helped a lot when I had to power through pain or exhaustion or just wanting to give up.

Yeah what you are describing is Phantom sensation or Phantom pain. We don't totally understand it. Your friend is lucky, as am I, to not get it that badly. Some people do and it has driven them to suicide. I will say it's extremely psychologically breaking to have pain in a part of the body you don't even have anymore. I don't get it too often or too bad. And for me, usually it just feels asleep. Sometimes it does hurt though. Usually after a really busy day is when I get phantom sensation. The other time it is bad is when the right ankle and foot hurt because of the damage and nerve damage to it and the left, nonexistent limb, will copy the pain in the right one. That plain out suuuuucccks. No other way to think of it. Nerve pain is already brutal. To have it in both legs, one of which I don't even have, is just awful.

We don't totally understand it. Some people respond to nerve medications like gabapentin for it. I didn't. There is also something called "Mirror Therapy" which for me would mean placing a mirror between my legs so that when I look, my brain sees 2 legs. It didn't work for me because my right leg is so jacked up and scarred that I couldn't fool myself. What does work is touching the limb itself, so giving something real to feel so that it doesn't have to make up a sensation. Also, I imagine myself using the limb. I actually picture myself swimming because it's a very sensory rich environment. I think of my leg kicks through the water and the bubbles rolling around my leg and ankle and that helps.

Since you are curious about this, search for a thread I made called "my new leg." It has pictures and a description of new prosthetic that was built for me near the end of last year. I think you will like it. And thank you for your interest. The only question that offends me is the one you don't ask. So if you have questions about my experience or being an amputee, feel free to ask them even if they seem odd or funny, or that they might be offensive. Trust me, they aren't offensive. Not to me at least. Thank you : )

[Vipes]

3.5 hours is such a long time, that's crazy. Were you concious that whole time? Pain must have been extreme once the adrenaline wore off...

[Purple Haze]

So crazy and so glad you survived with a positive outlook. Thanks for sharing...

[99RT10]

Looking at those pictures, it was a miracle that you survived. You had an angel on your shoulder. Glad you made it thru

[TA Two Oh]

Vprbite

I also joined the forum well after your crash, so I didn't know its details until now. I have, however, been thoroughly impressed with your amazing attitude as expressed in all of your posts. You are an incredible person, and I hope to meet you some day... hopefully at NVE III?

[Vprbite]

Vprbite

I also joined the forum well after your crash, so I didn't know its details until now. I have, however, been thoroughly impressed with your amazing attitude as expressed in all of your posts. You are an incredible person, and I hope to meet you some day... hopefully at NVE III?

Thank you very much. I really appreciate your kind words. Again, I am not doing this well in a vacuum. I had amazing support and don't think I will ever be able to truly repay everyone for how they helped me. There were days I woke up and really didn't know if I could do it that day. Staring down the barrel of 4 hours of painful physical therapy that day, a recovery that would take years, knowing that I would always be missing a leg, etc. And I just didn't have any gas in the tank. But by 8am I had emails from people who had never even met me. Nurses were bringing in gifts that arrived. I had voicemails to check and text messages. And that filled the tank. People who had never even met me (and I didn't post on the old forum though I was an a member) who were reaching out and saying I'm one of the Viper family and they want me back ASAP. That kept me powering through on days when I wasn't sure if I could.

Oh and I will be at NVE III for sure! I had a great time in New Orleans and will be there without a doubt. Looking forward to meeting you as well.

Thanks again for the interest and words of encouragement. It definitely goes a long way

[Vprbite]

3.5 hours is such a long time, that's crazy. Were you concious that whole time? Pain must have been extreme once the adrenaline wore off...

Yes I was conscious. They couldn't give me pain meds because my breathing was so shallow already. A few times I told them I just needed to close my eyes and rest for a few minutes but of course they wouldn't let me.

It was actually my idea that they used to get me out. As you can see that tree was buried in the car almost to the center console. The break pedal was sunk into my right leg and the left leg was the one that was really trapped. They had this hydraulic ram hey put between the dash and the rear bulkhead that would extend. Well it was under so much pressure that it would maybe get a couple inches off my leg and then it would pop out and the lower dash would slam back down on my legs. Well a first responder couldn't reach his hands down there because he could lose his hands. So I asked if they had any webbing. I told them to wrap the webbing around my legs and I could feel when the pressire was off and could tell them and they could pull me up and out, back. They first said something about damaging my legs further and I cut him off, looked him right in the eye and said "you and I both know I'm gonna die in this car and we are out of time." And he agreed. I have the benefit of a physiology degree and EMT education so I knew between blood loss and shock and dehydration, this race against the clock was in overtime as it was. So time was of the essence. So they did it and as soon as I felt the pressire lighten I yelled "pull!" And they pulled me up and back. I heard the dash slam back down again but was already on my way to the helicopter that was that.

One of the MANY positives to come of this is that they now use the footage from my extraction and the things they learned in training across the country to better prepare them for high performance vehicles. Cars like ours create their own challenges and need treated differently than a Camry for example because of the high strength design. So perhaps there are people being rescued more easily because of my experience. And that's just awesome.

[ViperRyan]

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She had her 2 young daughters in the car, which is why im extra glad I was able to avoid them. Even though I wasn't doing anything wrong, I would have felt awful if I had hurt children.

She was distracted by the kids it would seem. She wasn't drunk or high or anything. It was simply a confluence of events.

These pictures just make me cringe and my heart sink. I couldn't imagine going through that, you're so lucky to be and sure are one strong son of a bitch!!

Glad you're doing better and still here to enjoy everything life has to offer. I'm a new member here and already seeing how great this group of people really are!

[Vprbite]

So crazy and so glad you survived with a positive outlook. Thanks for sharing...

Thank you. The positivity is greatly enhanced by the amazing people around me.

To clarify, the Arizona club deserves a special thanks for all the effort they put in for me. They brought me back gifts from Charlotte and they were calling me every day in the hospital and started a big mass email for me to give updates. They offered to come and pick me up and take me for rides if I needed a viper fix and a new member who had never met me let me ride along on an event before I had gotten the new car and couldn't drive anyway. They were really amazing.

Jon from partsrack helped design my custom clutch pedal and then when I went to pay the machinist for it I was told that Jon had covered all costs. That was really nice of him and he sure didn't owe me anything as we barely knew each other at the time. I called him to thank him and tell him how nice that was, he said I can thank him by driving the car and not letting anything slow me down. 28k Miles in the 4 years since I started driving again (couldn't drive till we had done the first rebuild on the right knee) as well as a number of track days since then and zero missed shifts. We hit a home run with the pedal design!

Maurice had reached out to me and said to keep notes on things because he wanted to do a story on me when I was further along. So knowing my story was going to be told in the magazine made me want to seriously bust ass so that it was a story I could really be proud of.

The way I see it, if I had laid around like a sad sack and given up, I would have been telling everyone who worked to save me that day, all the doctors and nurses who worked with me, all the physical therapists who worked with me, and all my friends and fellow club members who made sure I NEVER felt alone or unsupported in the hospital that all the time, effort, and energy they put into helping me was wasted. I would be telling them they should have blown me off from the beginning and I would never want all of you to think that. You all supported me so much and people believed in me when I wasn't sure I could and I will make sure that those who helped me never regret the energy they put into me.

[Vprbite]

Looking at those pictures, it was a miracle that you survived. You had an angel on your shoulder. Glad you made it thru

Thank you. Yeah it's surreal to look at those pictures. I would do it again though if it meant not hurting those 2 young children in that minivan that crossed the double yellow. Even though I wasn't cited for anything I would have felt awful if I played any part of 2 young children getting hurt. So as far as I am concerned, it's another part of this that is a good thing. There is much more good than bad. Overall, I feel like I have to seek out the bad. The good is everywhere.

[Vprbite]

These pictures just make me cringe and my heart sink. I couldn't imagine going through that, you're so lucky to be and sure are one strong son of a bitch!!

Glad you're doing better and still here to enjoy everything life has to offer. I'm a new member here and already seeing how great this group of people really are!

Thanks. Well I decided I didn't want to recover halfway. So sometiemes it helped me summon strength because I didn't want to get halfway better. When I'm having a day where I am in a ton of pain sometimes that's what I do to get through it. I just tell myself "you could lay around all day and do nothing and not have pain again, or maybe even still hurt a little. So you hurt because you are getting better and you won't settle for halfway." And it helps. Some days when the pain is really bad I need to do whatever it takes to get through it so I'm not above talking to myself : )

Though the amputation doesn't really hurt. It's the arthritis that developed from the sheer blunt force trauma and the rebuilt knee and damaged ankle that hurt. I put my leg on and don't usually think about it again until I take it off.

You are right and I'm glad you are seeing that. It is an amazing group of people in this club. I have never seen a community like this. I've been around a lot of nice cars and known owners of all Marques but no one is like the Viper club.

[Vipes]

That's such a crazy story. That you may have saved your own life, who knows how much longer you had left to live in that car. You really do have such an awesome outlook. I'm so glad the car didn't catch on fire. Thanks for being open about it and sharing the details. I'm glad this group helped you a lot with recovering.

[Martin]

Seriously inspiring story - God bless you for making it through and being able to share your experience. Really puts things into perspective... I've been in a post-cancer funk for the last couple of weeks, and your story does help to trigger a reality check.

I hear you on the nerve pain - it can be excruciating, especially in the cold weather. I've been stuck between a rock and a hard place on it - my feet and hands are driving me crazy, and the gabapentin (Neurontin) helps a lot in my case, but it makes me so sleepy that driving the new ACR around is just plain scary. So, I've been grounded for a while - can't really drive with my hands and feet feeling either numb or like I'm walking on thumb tacks, and can't really drive if I feel groggy.

Anyhow, that's a really minor inconvenience compared to not having part of a leg, and having the other one all torn up. Life is short, we've got to make the best of it with what cards we're dealt...

[J TNT]

That wreck looks horrific . Glad you're still with us , and wish you all the Best !
Thanks for sharing your story .

[TA Two Oh]

An absolutely incredible story. I very much look forward to meeting you.

[Fatboy 18]

Did the other Driver ever contact you to thank you?

[Martin]

Did the other Driver ever contact you to thank you?

Not to be presumptuous, but my guess is the lawyers from her insurance company didn't want her to say anything - ever....