The World Thru My Words

07/07/07 a day that will live in infamy… or at least one that I wont soon forget.

Even since I began riding a motorcycle many years ago people have always said that its not if you will ever be involved in a motorcycle accident but when, and sure enough it happened.

About 11pm on 07 July, I was involved in a hit-and-run accident. I was returning home on my new motorcycle when a car turned in front of me thinking it could get across before I got there. It wasn’t meant to be.

All I remember are the headlights turning in front of me and a VERY sudden deceleration. When I woke up I was lying on the pavement looking up at the stars.

At some point I realized there was a very nice lady holding my left hand saying, “Hold on everything will be alright” and the sound of sirens in the distance. The feeling at that moment of being comforted by complete stranger was the most calming and wonderful feeling in the world, because I knew things were not good. She started to step away when the paramedics arrived but I remember asking her to keep holding my hand as long as she could.

I don’t remember much after that. There are spotty memories of riding in the ambulance and of all things joking with the driver about hitting bumps and answering questions from the paramedics; what can I feel, allergies and the number of a family member to contact.

The next few days were are a blur, visions of the trauma/emergency room, police and friends and family by my side. Thank goodness for modern medicine and the pain I never felt. When I finally was coherent, it was three days later.

With a fractured knee, fractured pelvis, shattered right wrist (Smiths fracture), fractured left wrist (Colles fracture), and 2 operations under my belt, I was battered but alive. Typical motorcycle injuries I came to find out. Filled with plates and pins all over my body I began the road to recovery.

The most visible repair was an external fixator. This is an external metal bar that has screws that are inserted into the bone and come through the skin, hand and radius bone in my case. It is used to set bone fractures in which a cast would not allow proper alignment of the fracture. This little device was
the best conversation starter and never failed to gain attention.

After 11 days I left the hospital.

From wheelchair, to walker, to finally being able to walk again has been a struggle but today I am about 80% back to normal. My wrists however are more serious. The left one is much better than my right wrist and I have slowly become more left-handed.

The right wrist has had another surgery to remove broken hardware, but I expect to have the wrist bones fused together later this year in another surgery thus loosing the ability to bend up and down but avoiding that arthritic pain that would continue. Currently it’s in a full cast and very annoying.

The left wrist will be worked on next year and my surgeon suspects he will be able to make it better and more normal but never one hundred percent.

The bike was a brand new 2007 Suzuki VStrom with less than 400 miles on it and it was really nice. At the time of impact I was only traveling around 35 mph and there was little time to begin slowing.

I finally returned to work on the 15th of October. The funny thing is I had only been at this job 3 weeks before my accident so it as like starting all over again.

Little tasks are very difficult. Normal people can grip with 40-60 pounds of pressure, but I am down to about 0-5. Computer activity and using a mouse was very difficult and affected my return to work. I am back to using a trackball and its actually pretty cool – no carpel tunnel syndrome for me!

They never did find the person who hit me, but then again I couldn’t provide much of a description. It really hasn’t mattered though.

I am so thankful to be alive and for the people who have helped me get to where I am today.

Will I ride again? I don’t know about that – at least not right now.

A few pictures live at (nothing disgusting but includes xrays):
http://stugs.com/toxicwhoops/
http://photos.erinmack.net/main.php/v/chrishospital/

and the memories of the day I got the bike
http://photos.erinmack.net/main.php/v/chrisbike/

Take care,
Chris

Happy Birthday to Erin… the best roomie evar!

Bad news from Blacksburg… this event hit very close to a lot of people and was truly an event that affect the American consciousness. Condolences to the people who directly experienced it.

I raise my VT glass and say here’s to Virginia Tech.

The world of home automation has always fascinated me and I have owned a couple of X10 devices in the past. Well I pulled them out of a box, dusted them off and plugged them in.

I recently purchased Logitech® Harmony® 880 Advanced Universal Remote and so far have found this to be the best remote control ever for the price. Not only did it replace 6 remotes but it is now controlling lights in the house.

I am planning to expand the X10 installation to include a motion detector in the garage accompanied with a alarm device yet to be determined.

Today Adam and I ventured to see some incredibly large ocean racing yachts that are current making a stopover in Norfolk. The VELUX 5 OCEANS race is a solo yacht race around the world. An incredible feat to think about but made even more astonishing when you have seen the size of these yachts. I read that most of the time the boats are on autopilot and the skippers are dealing with the other tasks at hand.

They had traveled over 25,000 miles from England the long way to be in Norfolk !

Here are some pictures from Adam.

As a cat sits under my feet, I have completed the newest installation of Wordpress and once again have this blog going again. Let’s see what happens.