Tueday April 12th in the early afternoon I was riding my bike. I was wearing jeans, a t-shirt, and body armor over the shirt as well as a helmet and gloves. Riding my 07' Honda CBR 1000RR in a residential area right by my house which has a long straight with big lot houses only on 1 side set deep on to their properties. I was doing something I shouldn't have been and ended up coming to a turn at the end of the street at around 80mph that is like a 30mph on a good deep lean turn. I decided to take it into a houses front grassy yard vs taking a chance with the corner with cars, trees, and people on the sidewalk up ahead. I slid through the grass as I tried to to stop and then low sided on the left side. I remember looks down at the speedo and it was plummeting under 60mph. I don't remember hitting the ground from the low side or anything after that.
Apparently the bike slid on its side through the easement, over the side walk and into the yard which was lined with palm trees. My bike caught something and flipped a few times launching me forward over the bike with my arms out stretched in front of me.
Both arms impacted hands first which broke my right arm in half right below the shoulder. My left arm broke in half in the same spot on the left side and as I flipped it pushed my shoulder through my socket dislocating the arm and separating the ball from the arm below it as it split the ball in multiple pieces. The remainder of the ball went through my socket shattering it in 7 pieces and rotated my arm behind my back as I tumbled. I slid across the grass and then hit a tree. I bruised my left lung in a few places, sprained my right ankle bad and chipped it as well as other minor bone chips all over my body.
I woke up to see a guy above me white as a sheet. I asked him what was wrong and he said there was something wrong with my arm. Apparently it was behind my back and the bones were pushing hard against my skin. Later on I learned it was rare to not have the bones push through the skin on that type of injury but they didn't thankfully. I passed out right after that.
I woke up again as the medics were lifting me on to the board and passed out many times on the ride to jackson hospital. The medics thought I wasn't gonna do so well do to me not moving at all and constantly fading and asking the same questions over and over. When we got to the hospital I kept blacking out for the rest of the afternoon as they moved me around taking scans to figure out what was wrong.
The helicopter was picking up another motorcycle accident when I fell and he made it but the guy they picked up after me later in the day didn't. RIP to the unknown rider.
In south florida we're lucky to have one of the best trauma hospitals in the united states. Jackson ryder trauma center. When I arrived at jackson in the early afternoon I became the #1 priority for the trauma center and after all my scans I was moved ahead of all surgeries for the next day starting in the early morning and all surgeries were canceled for that surgery team for the day. The best upper body specialist jackson has spent 8 hours rebuilding my left arm and 2 hours on my right. I lost a lot of blood and they had numerous issues during the surgery that caused complications in repairing my arm. Do to my age they did the best to save the shoulder but it was a lot worse then they thought when they went in. I shattered everything and ripped off every muscle and ligament.
I have 5 pins in my right arm holding the bones together so they will heal properly. I also have a plate with screws holding my left arm together and a much larger plate with screws holding my socket and arm together. They tried every other method to get my arm and shoulder back together but they didn't work.
From what I've been told be every specialist, surgeon, and doctor it's one of the nicest repairs they've ever seen.
Now I just have to wait to see if it heals right and if the arm is usable. I'll probably need a full shoulder replacement in 5-10 years though either way.
The initial prognoses was I'd never feel most of my hand and arm or be able to lift my arm more then 30% with recovery time being over a year.
A week later that was upgraded to 80% or better nerve recovery and being able to lift my arm above my stomach in a year.
2 weeks in I have 80% of the feeling back in my arm and can lift it, grasp and lift objects of light weight and raise my hand to my stomach and out to the side.
2-1/2 weeks in the current prognoses is a full recovery with partial nerve damage, strength loss, and motion loss. But minimal if at all.
As each day goes by I'm making ground breaking progress which they are tracking in a special study do to the uniqueness of my injury and surgery.
There is no longer a time line for my recovery do to me surpassing all the known benchmarks to compare to.
I was discharged 3 days after the accident that friday and went to my aunts house for 24/7 care till 2 days ago when I finally went home and can do almost all tasks alone without help.
In the beginning they were giving me large doses of dilaudid which is the strongest opioid narcotic they make. The issue was I wouldn't sleep and I was in so much pain that they couldn't give me more of the drug or I'd OD because I have such a large tolerance for pain medications. That made the first few days after surgery a real treat.
As my pain went down in the following days and weeks it was manageable with high doses of dilaudid and finally as of yesterday I haven't had to take any because I have minimal pain.
I typed this message with minimal error with my left hand and took a drink with it as well as keep it elevated on it owns without a sling and use it to adjust objects and even hold some weight.
All that said the damage to my bike is fairly minimal. The whole front wind shield, plastics, speedometer, and headlights are gone. The shifter peg snapped off and all the fairings are trashed front and rear. The rear rim has a chunk missing from the lip. Besides that and some dings she'll ride again.. under me.
That's just a grand or so to fix which is nothing compared to the almost half a million dollars it cost to repair me. So I think the bike got the better end of the stick.
My buddy picked up my bike from the impound and took these pics the next day.
They didn't recover my armor or left glove but they cut my pants and shirt off me. This was all that was left. Blood and dirt on my helmet and necklace and watch pin broke in half. I slid on my face after I ate it apparently do to the wicked scrape marks and cracks on my visor and front of my helmet as well as the cuts on my neck.
These are daily pictures of my recovery from after surgery to a week later as they removed my staples to 2 weeks after when I removed the butterflys.
Here is a pre-op picture set of my left shoulder and a little explanation of the damage.
A week ago I got the pins removed from my right arm. Here are some pics for all you hard core fans.
-updated-
Also as of yesterday I'm able to lift my left arm over my head. If you've been reading along I wasn't ever supposed to be able to do that. If I was at all it would be 9-12 months. It's been 6 weeks.
Apparently the bike slid on its side through the easement, over the side walk and into the yard which was lined with palm trees. My bike caught something and flipped a few times launching me forward over the bike with my arms out stretched in front of me.
Both arms impacted hands first which broke my right arm in half right below the shoulder. My left arm broke in half in the same spot on the left side and as I flipped it pushed my shoulder through my socket dislocating the arm and separating the ball from the arm below it as it split the ball in multiple pieces. The remainder of the ball went through my socket shattering it in 7 pieces and rotated my arm behind my back as I tumbled. I slid across the grass and then hit a tree. I bruised my left lung in a few places, sprained my right ankle bad and chipped it as well as other minor bone chips all over my body.
I woke up to see a guy above me white as a sheet. I asked him what was wrong and he said there was something wrong with my arm. Apparently it was behind my back and the bones were pushing hard against my skin. Later on I learned it was rare to not have the bones push through the skin on that type of injury but they didn't thankfully. I passed out right after that.
I woke up again as the medics were lifting me on to the board and passed out many times on the ride to jackson hospital. The medics thought I wasn't gonna do so well do to me not moving at all and constantly fading and asking the same questions over and over. When we got to the hospital I kept blacking out for the rest of the afternoon as they moved me around taking scans to figure out what was wrong.
The helicopter was picking up another motorcycle accident when I fell and he made it but the guy they picked up after me later in the day didn't. RIP to the unknown rider.
In south florida we're lucky to have one of the best trauma hospitals in the united states. Jackson ryder trauma center. When I arrived at jackson in the early afternoon I became the #1 priority for the trauma center and after all my scans I was moved ahead of all surgeries for the next day starting in the early morning and all surgeries were canceled for that surgery team for the day. The best upper body specialist jackson has spent 8 hours rebuilding my left arm and 2 hours on my right. I lost a lot of blood and they had numerous issues during the surgery that caused complications in repairing my arm. Do to my age they did the best to save the shoulder but it was a lot worse then they thought when they went in. I shattered everything and ripped off every muscle and ligament.
I have 5 pins in my right arm holding the bones together so they will heal properly. I also have a plate with screws holding my left arm together and a much larger plate with screws holding my socket and arm together. They tried every other method to get my arm and shoulder back together but they didn't work.
From what I've been told be every specialist, surgeon, and doctor it's one of the nicest repairs they've ever seen.
Now I just have to wait to see if it heals right and if the arm is usable. I'll probably need a full shoulder replacement in 5-10 years though either way.
The initial prognoses was I'd never feel most of my hand and arm or be able to lift my arm more then 30% with recovery time being over a year.
A week later that was upgraded to 80% or better nerve recovery and being able to lift my arm above my stomach in a year.
2 weeks in I have 80% of the feeling back in my arm and can lift it, grasp and lift objects of light weight and raise my hand to my stomach and out to the side.
2-1/2 weeks in the current prognoses is a full recovery with partial nerve damage, strength loss, and motion loss. But minimal if at all.
As each day goes by I'm making ground breaking progress which they are tracking in a special study do to the uniqueness of my injury and surgery.
There is no longer a time line for my recovery do to me surpassing all the known benchmarks to compare to.
I was discharged 3 days after the accident that friday and went to my aunts house for 24/7 care till 2 days ago when I finally went home and can do almost all tasks alone without help.
In the beginning they were giving me large doses of dilaudid which is the strongest opioid narcotic they make. The issue was I wouldn't sleep and I was in so much pain that they couldn't give me more of the drug or I'd OD because I have such a large tolerance for pain medications. That made the first few days after surgery a real treat.
As my pain went down in the following days and weeks it was manageable with high doses of dilaudid and finally as of yesterday I haven't had to take any because I have minimal pain.
I typed this message with minimal error with my left hand and took a drink with it as well as keep it elevated on it owns without a sling and use it to adjust objects and even hold some weight.
All that said the damage to my bike is fairly minimal. The whole front wind shield, plastics, speedometer, and headlights are gone. The shifter peg snapped off and all the fairings are trashed front and rear. The rear rim has a chunk missing from the lip. Besides that and some dings she'll ride again.. under me.
That's just a grand or so to fix which is nothing compared to the almost half a million dollars it cost to repair me. So I think the bike got the better end of the stick.
My buddy picked up my bike from the impound and took these pics the next day.
They didn't recover my armor or left glove but they cut my pants and shirt off me. This was all that was left. Blood and dirt on my helmet and necklace and watch pin broke in half. I slid on my face after I ate it apparently do to the wicked scrape marks and cracks on my visor and front of my helmet as well as the cuts on my neck.
These are daily pictures of my recovery from after surgery to a week later as they removed my staples to 2 weeks after when I removed the butterflys.
Here is a pre-op picture set of my left shoulder and a little explanation of the damage.
A week ago I got the pins removed from my right arm. Here are some pics for all you hard core fans.
-updated-
Also as of yesterday I'm able to lift my left arm over my head. If you've been reading along I wasn't ever supposed to be able to do that. If I was at all it would be 9-12 months. It's been 6 weeks.
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