The Accident
During the 72/73 winter layoff, I took a room with the parents of a buddy. I had gone to school with him, and we were pretty good buds. His mom and dad took me in with no problems. Another friend of ours came over one day to invite us to go for a logging-road trip in his ’64 Ford Meteor.
He had just done a brake job and wanted to test them out. This sounded like a good idea, so 5 of us, plus the driver, all piled in the car and off we went. It was Dec. 1, 1972. We had fun, smoked a few joints, and had a few beers while we raced around the logging roads behind town. Then, on our way back into town, on a downhill section of road, the brakes failed. We were whipping along pretty fast when we noticed an off-road fatboy logging truck turning up the hill toward us. When he saw us, He tried to stop, we met him on a one-lane bridge, and we were doing about 60. We hit him head-on, and we went right under him. The car was crushed pretty badly, but all 6 of us survived, 3 of us not so well, and 3 almost walked away. I broke a few bones, shattering my left leg in numerous places, along with serious compound fractures. I was pretty messed up. My buddy, whose house I was staying at, broke his back in a few places, and the driver dislocated his hips. We were lucky that it was a fat-boy truck; if it had been a highway truck, we would all be dead, I suspect. More room under the fat boy.
As we were flying down the hill at breakneck speed, only one thought was on my mind. I was sure we were all going to die. I was hinking this, as I watched the driver pop the gear into reverse, and hoping it might help. There was a loud ping, and we just kept going.
I was in the middle of the front seat and at this point, I was ready to jump out and take my chances on the road. But I was blocked by two guys who appeared to be frozen; I was yelling at them to jump. When I concluded they would not, I got on the floor to keep my head down. I was kneeling on the hump where the driveshaft ran under the car. My brain was sending me images of the car being sheared off by the truck bumper, and I did not want to lose my head. Instead of this, the car engine was pushed back, with this putting so much pressure on the driveshaft that it just buckled and twisted its way in the car’s front seat area, going through my leg on its way. The car roof was pressed down to the seat tops, and the engine was almost in my lap. I must have blacked out, because all of a sudden, the lights were flashing and people were trying to figure out a way to extract me.
They had a hell of a time getting us all out, as we were lodged between the front wheels of the truck, and the truck was loaded. Once they had us extracted, they stacked us up in the ambulance one over the other and off to the hospital we went. Three of the boys were released from the emergency ward. The other two got out of the hospital in a few weeks, but I was there for quite some time.
When I came out of the coma, I found myself standing in a hospital hallway. I must have come to and in a daze, ripped the IV’s out of my arm, and there I was, walking down the hall, wondering what the hell was going on. People looking out from their rooms to see a mostly naked man with wires and shit hanging off him, screaming with a look of terror on his face.
The last thing I remembered was watching TV at my friend’s house, and then it seemed like I blinked and the next moment I was in a freaking nightmare. I had a cast on my leg, I was covered in blood, one arm not working, and my head was full of stitches. Then I looked down the hall, and all I saw were doctors and nurses running towards me. It was like some old horror flick. It took me a while before I was able to remember the accident.
I was put in a 2 man room beside a taxi driver whose feet had begun to rot. He had black wounds all over them. It was a staphylococcal infection. I had open wounds under my cast that were open to the bone. I got the infection, and it went into my bone marrow. I did not know I was infected until the gland at the top of my leg swelled up like a baseball.
I called one of our young nurses to come check out my swollen gland, as I began to pull my blankets down so she could look. She ran out of the room, not sure why, until the head nurse came in, she was a real battleaxe lady, and she began to yell at me about the whole thing. It seemed they thought I was being rude until I finally got it across about which gland I was referring to. Everyone had a bit of a nervous laugh. They then brought in a bone saw and cut a window into the cast to take a look. As they pulled the cutout away. You could smell the infection; my leg was rotten. The flesh had to be removed right to the bone in the worst area; this was done to stop it from spreading. I was put in isolation and on heavy antibiotics being administered intravenously for weeks. After getting out of isolation, I had to take medication orally for more than a year to stop this infection that had moved into my bone marrow. Never understood why they would put me in a room where this type of infection was. Slowed my recovery.
I did not enjoy my stay, but the nurses and staff did their best to keep me happy. The pain was pretty intense, so there were nights when I could not sleep. There was one nurse, an elder from Campbell River. I can’t remember her name, but she would come in with tea and toast for me, and we would talk as I ate my toast. She was pretty cool. Another highlight of my day was this young girl who would ride past my room in the afternoon and say hi. She was in a pedal car and always sporting a big smile. This always cheered me up.