Hey guys, sorry I missed all of this on here when it was going on, but now I can give you the whole scoop from start to finish.
First - I really was riding Loretta's wounded already, just 3.5 weeks out of knee surgery from my Pleasure Valley Regional crash in the final Moto. I was hoping for a delay in the start of Loretta's due to Corona Virus to give me more time to heal, but it went off on time. I was riding gingerly out there and trying to get through the first lap without any chaos in each Moto and just cruise it in from there. It was working in the first 2 motos, and I was doing fine, was hoping for a top 20 finish in Moto 3 to end my week.
Race 3 - I was mid pack on the start and ended up in the middle going into the Ten Commandments and had to single the first couple of jumps due to traffic, but then it opened up and I doubled 3 and 4 (so did the guy just outside of me and slightly behind me but he over jumped it) while in the down part, the guy behind me just outside hits me in the left arm / hand blowing my front end to the right and sending me down to the ground on the left. I was falling like a log into the face of the next jump and hit full force into the jump face. As I hit, I felt a rubber band like snap inside of my pants right behind the zipper. It felt weird and I wondered what that was..... but I'm down, and I got grazed in the head by another rider going by that broke the beak of my helmet in half. Once traffic cleared, I crawled to the edge of the track and the grass. Two track / medical workers were right there to help me up and check me out. As they helped me to my feet, my legs felt like Bambi legs wobbling with pain as they moved in my lower back. The Medical golf cart pulled up and they set me on the corner seat. They checked me for concussion, asked questions, and then when that was fine took off my helmet. Asked some more questions and the whole time I'm sitting there, I feel fine, no problems. They finally ask if I want to get on my bike and ride, and I say yes, put my helmet back on, put my goggles on, and then go to stand up off the golf cart. Bambi legs again with shooting pain in my tailbone area of the spine as I'm going to fall trying to walk and they grab me and say we're going to the medical trailer, and I agree. Lay me down on the stretcher and off I go.
To the trailer which is a mini emergency room there complete with X-ray machine. The weird thing is that I can lay down, I can sit down, and I can stand still without any pain. But if I move either femur at all, it's extremely painful in my lower tailbone area. I can feel everything in my toes, move my feet, ankles, knees, no problem, just can't move my femurs. So they take X-rays, and they know something is wrong but don't tell me because the Doc is on the track in the +50 class with me and they need him to say what's going on. Anyway, after the race and a little while, Doc comes into the trailer and looks at the X-rays and talks to the people working in there to give me the bad news. You have an open book pelvic fracture, you snapped the ligament the holds the pubic bones together in front and there are cracks in your pelvis along your spinal cord and you may have cracked some transverse processes in the area as well. The local hospital can't handle this injury and we need to life flight you to Nashville. Don't worry about the life flight, the event has an insurance policy that covers the cost of the life flight ($54,000) and as a participant, you won't be responsible for this cost. So we need to get you ready to get in the helicopter that's on it's way. They had already taken off my boots, helmet, and all my gear except for my leggings that I wear under my pants. They cut those off to check for any other signs of injury that I might have........ and send me to helicopter naked with a sheet over my body. I have no phone, no wallet, no clothes, nothing....... my sister writes her phone number on a piece of paper so I can call her and tell her where I am and what's going on. Off to Nashville in the helicopter. They sent me to Tristar Medical Center which is Nashville's trauma center for big accidents and I got there about 2pm Friday afternoon.
Here's where things start to really go downhill for me. I get there, and they need to do X-rays and an MRI to see what they think is going on with me. Moving me from bed to table and back is like killing me. The pain is the worst that I've ever felt in my life but I get some tests done. They keep telling me that they have a specialist on staff that specializes in Hip / Pelvis injuries and once he sees my info, he will want to get me into surgery right away. So I'm in presurgery protocol all day - no food, water, drinks, nothing..... and I'm waiting and waiting begging for a phone to call my wife and let her know what going on at home. By the time I get to call her at about 6pm, she has already heard and is pissed that I didn't call...... of course I'm naked and have 0 possessions with me and finally got a nurse to let me use her phone. I tell her that I'm doing fine and they are going to do surgery on me right away. And she is booking a flight to Nashville on Saturday morning.
I'm waiting all night and nothing ever happens, they eventually move me out of the trauma room and into a regular hospital bed and keep telling me the specialist will perform surgery ASAP when he sees my tests. I'm just waiting.......
Saturday morning, same thing, still no food, water or drinks, I'm going to surgery any time. My wife arrives in Nashville, but isn't allowed into the hospital due to Covid rules and can only come in from 430pm - 6 pm visiting hours. So I'm waiting and taking heavy pain meds every 4 hours, I still can't move either femur at all without extreme debilitating pain so I'm just laying in bed. About 130pm, the orthopedic trauma doc on call for the weekend comes up to my room and tells me that he took me off surgery list and I can have something to eat. He looked at my X-rays and MRI and thinks that all of this is old / chronic injuries that I just aggravated in the crash and with some physical therapy - I'll be fine. He is going to send PT up and have me start walking with a walker.......... I am flabbergasted, and say walk???? I can't lift either leg a 1/4" off this bed without extreme pain, how am I going to walk? He says well that doesn't make any sense, I'm going to order another MRI and check your back a little higher up because your stuff looks like it's fine. I said, well the doctor at the track told me that I broke the ligament in front that holds the pubic bone together and that it will bleed internally and it will all go to my penile region and turn it dark purple with the blood, which it's doing and that's never happened before so I know that this isn't an old injury.
Nurse from hell, who hates me and is in charge of my meds..... gets to take me to the new MRI right when I'm due for the pain med at the 4 hour mark. She says - No we will do those when we get back, and I say, no I really need them before we go down to MRI and you move me from this bed onto the table and back because it kills me to do that. She says no - I'm taking you now. And off to the next MRI, down in the basement of the hospital - Nurse from Hell decides that she and the MRI Female Tech are enough to move 200lb me from the hospital bed to the table no problem. She just about kills me from the pain to move and I'm screaming in pain and she slams my head against the MRI bed because the 2 of them aren't strong enough to slide me over.... I'm literally in the worst pain I've ever felt. After MRI is done, I get back to the room just before 430pm when my wife can get in to see me....... Nurse from Hell intercepts my wife to tell her that I tested positive from Narcotics in my blood screening and that I'm looking for pain meds - the real reason she hates me, but doesn't know I'm on HydroCodone for my knee surgery 3.5 weeks earlier and that's why I have narcotics in my system, for knee pain which I took an hour before my Moto to feel as good as I could. My wife starts raising hell with the people and eventually gets turned over to the shift supervisor for the weekend, who informs us that the specialist that is going to do my surgery right away, isn't on call this weekend, is on vacation and won't be back until Monday at 10am..... it's 445pm Saturday. And the ER Trauma guy is having me walk with PT and a walker, which is the worst thing you can do for someone with an open book pelvic fracture. That starts the attempts to transfer out of there to Cleveland and get home. Long story there.... but eventually get transferred to Cleveland by a medical air ambulance (pictures earlier) that we had to pay for ($9400.00) to get to Cleveland. Got into Cleveland Clinic and got a great doctor who did my surgery on Wednesday Aug 12, and helped us with the issues we had with the Nashville group as our advocate.