the time i broke my neck.................long.

[riverboatking]

so its 2:30am i'm tired and bored so i figured i'd share with ya'll my experience breaking my neck.
i shattered my 7th vertebre completely and was in surgery for 12hrs while they picked pieces of my vertebre out of my spinal column and shaved a piece of my hip bone and fused my C6 to my T1 with a plate and 2 screws which will remain inside of me forever.
those are the cliff notes now for the story (if this belongs in OOT not here feel free to move, not really sure where it belongs):

i grew up pretty athletic, playing baseball from the time i was 6, hockey from the time i was 12, and basketball and football in highschool.
i also snowboarded starting at around 11 and spent every winter at my buddies cabin in mammoth.

i was a pretty wild and reckless kid always breaking something annually for the first 18 years of my life with no serious consequences and i was pretty convinced i was indestructible.

so as per usual christmas break me and my two best friends head up to mammoth for a whole lotta snowboarding and numerous attempts at convincing young women in the area that it would be in their best interest to engage in an assortment of sexual activites.

its a the first day of boarding and it is absolutely perfect.
skies are clear, sun is out, and it snowed recently so the conditions are perfect.
we start the day off on the west side of the mountain, and after hitting up most of the black diamonds i decide i want to head to the snowboard park.
my two buddies arent really into the jumps and so they take off for the east side of the mountain and we decide to meet up later.

now let me say that at this point i'm a damn good boarder...i can pretty much go down any black diamond and i'm decent in the park, however i'm by no means a badass.
i have just recently started doing jumps and stuff, but i cant do any rails or the half pipe very well at all.

HOWEVER i do like to just haul ass off the jumps, especally when there are ladies in the area to witness my daring feats of bravery and machismo.
it also helps that up to this point i am unaware that it is actually possible to injure oneself seriously just by flying thru the air at high speeds and landing on a hard surface.

the snowboard park has a sign when entering that says something to the effect of: "caution you may [censored] kill yourself, but you cant sue us so we're going to create all kinds of life threating obstacles for you to hurl yourself off of".

however since there were no pictures on the sign it obviously means nothing to me.

the park at mammoth at the time has jumps for all levels of riders, but the real bad boys are called step-up table-tops, and basically there is a big ramp with a long flat table top and then a downward vertical ramp for landing.
its called a step up because the take-off ramp has a ledge and there is a drop-off to the table top below it and subsequent landing ramp.
there are table tops of varing length and based on how long the table top is you need to adjust your speed so that you insure you land on the downward ramp.
landing in "the flats" is a really bad plan.

there are a bunch of small like 5-10 foot table tops near teh top of the park, but landing one of those has never made even the sluttiest of [censored] panties moist so in order to be a real balla you have to go down to the middle of the park where the big 30ft table top is.

there is a large staging section where tons of ppl sit around adjusting their bindings and pretending they are about to attempt an inverted 720 backside tail grab when in reality they are prolly going to snowplow their way to the bottom.

but point is there are a ton of ppl watching the big jump, not to mention the ski lift goes right over the jump, so there is a big audience to witness the semi-pro's and manic-depressive delusionals hurl themselves over this beast.

so i go.

obviously.

you have to carry a ton of speed to clear the jump so i just bomb it, i'm not 100% sure what i was trying to pull, however i somehow managed to do a complete backflip plus a 1/2 rotation and while i have some vague recollection of flying thru the air the first real clear memory i have is landing.

hard.

really hard.

i'm in the flat right past the bottom of the landing ramp and i'm flat on my back, i can see people in the ski lift above me looking down with a mixture of amusement and horror as they ride by.

i dont lose conciousness but i feel really really light and after a few moments i realize that maybe i should get up and outta the way so other people can go off the jump without landing on me.

at this point i still do not realize that i am hurt, just having a slightly hard time breathing and working up the energy to move a single muscle in my body.

but i'm going to be just fine.

i try to get up a few times with no sucess and after some unknown amount of time lying on my back the snow patrol arrives.

i wonder who they're here for?

they strap me into that little [censored] horrible contraption and ski me down the hill into the medic staging area where they tell me they can either call me an ambulance or i can leave on my own.

well it'd prolly be best if i got a move on cuz its been real nice chatting with ya'll but i have to meet my friends for lunch.

so i try and roll over to the right and get up, that doesnt work, so i try and roll over to the left and that doesnt work, and its at about this time that some brilliant medical savant makes the bold and controversial statement:

"maybe he shouldn't be moving around".

so the strap me back down and call the ambulance.

ambulance comes and moves me from the [censored] stretcher to another [censored] stretcher that has a bump right where the back of your head goes which to this day no one can explain to me the puporse of besides making an already unpleasant experience even more miserable.

i get to share the ambulance with a girl who has the most obnoxious voice ever and doesnt stop whining about her excruiatingly painful broken finger for the entire ride.

once i get to the hospital they take x-rays and after a while a doctor walks up to my bed where i am lying completely immobilized and informs me (direct quote):

"well you broke your neck"

then immediately walks away.

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

after giving me sufficent time to ponder the life choices i had made to arrive at the wonderfully friendly and informative mammoth general hospital a nurse comes to tell me that they do not have a neurosurgeon on duty so they are going to be airlifting me to washoe medical center in reno where they will do the surgery.

somewhere during all of this i decide i'd like to vomit and i had somehow been conditioned during my upbringing to make sure at all costs to vomit somewhere other then all over myself, so i roll over on my side and begin the ritual.

at which point pretty much every one in scrubs bum rushes me pushes me onto my back and starts screaming about how i'm not to move under any circumstances and dont i realize i have a broken neck and what am i thinking?

i guess i missed the part where after saying "well you broke your neck" the doctor muttered under his breath while walking away "oh ya and dont move around".

so the airlift arrives and unlike the staff at mammoth the nurse who takes me to the plane is an angel sent straight from heaven fully equipped with drugs.

"oooooh you poor baby are you in any pain?"

[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]

once airborne florence nightengale asks me if i suffer from motion sickness, which i most certainly do and since we were on a tiny little plane it was kicking in high gear.

thankfully she didnt want me to puke all over myself anymore then i did, and i dont know what she put in my IV but good lord it was sweet bliss and i'm talking INSTANT no more sickness.

they get me to washoe and the doctors there are much nicer and apparently not restricted by the same levels of secrecy that the doctors at mammoth hospital are.

i find out that i have completely shattered my 7th vertebre.
totally.
100%.
disentegrated.

they are going to put me in traction and commence surgery in the morning when the full team arrives.
there are going to be 2 neurosurgeons and an orthepedic performing the surgery and the plan is to take a slice of my hip bone and fuse it from my C-6 to my T-1 with a plate and two screws.
and no it wont set off metal detectors [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img] (which was my first question too) since its made of titanium.

so traction is a means by which they insure that you are 100% immobilized and the way they do this is by attaching a heavy weight to your head via screws in the side of your head.

"you may feel a bit of pressure" was what they said before effectively putting my head into a vice and tightening it until my eyeballs bulged.

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...........some more morphine please.

somehow or another they had managed to elicit pieces of information from me (i was really drugged up) which included my home phone number and so at some point in the night i am awakened by my mother who must also have injured herself and what a coincidence she ended up in the same hospital.....very strange indeed.....oh well more opiates please.

surgery time comes and let me tell you when they put the mask on you, tell you to count backwards from 100 and that you'll be asleep by the time you get to 97 they aren't joking.

next thing i know i wake up wondering when the hell were going to get to this surgery business...what its 28hrs later?
i was in surgery for 12 hours?
you want to put that tube where?????????????

i dont wish to relive the pain and anguish of the cathater suffice to say that it hurt a hell of alot more coming out then going in, which was a suprise to me.

ahhh the morphine drip.
its hooked up to the IV and you control it with a little remote that had a little red button on it which i could push every 8 mins to release a morphine shot.
i clearly remember pushing that button non-stop for like 18hrs straight with no breaks cuz i had no concept of when 8 mins had passed.

i was also insanely thirsty after surgery but i wasn't allowed to eat or drink anything and i could only have one ice chip on my tongue every 10 mins.
my mother god bless her heart sat by me the entire time putting ice chips on my tongue and each one tasted like a little piece of heaven.
seriously you have no idea how good those [censored] things felt, i would have given an arm for a glass of water.

after the first day of recovery i could eat and drink again but no solid foods so i had a lifetime supply of orange sherbet, apparently the hospital had an exclusive sponsorship deal with the flavor orange so that was the only option, and i like orange dont get me wrong but after a while i started to really crave some rainbow.

also the nurse that gave me sponge baths was really old.

[img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

the first few times i tried to walk were really hard however i regained my strength quickly and i was up and moving around much faster then anyone anticipated.

after about two weeks they decided i was strong enough to be moved so they flew me down to los angeles where i was to be under the care of a highly respected doctor.

i was in a full neck brace however i was lucky enough to not have to wear the halo (which they have to screw into your head) because my body was in such good condition prior to the accident so they fusion took easily. (often times ppl who are overweight have to wear the halo cuz their bodies initially reject the hip bone fusion).

i was also able to walk without crutches or a wheel chair so when i met my new doctor i was walking on my own.

well apparently he was not expecting this, as for some reason all they did was send him my x-rays and forgot to mention that i wasn't a quadraplegic.

ahhhh the look on his face was priceless.
apparently there is absolutely no way that someone who suffers the injury i had isn't paralyized from the neck down, and this doctor politely informed me that his medical insurance limits werent high enough to take me on as he was under the impression that at any moment my spinal column was going to give out and i was going to be in some serious bad shape.

sweet, thanks doc, no thank you have a great day too.

so new plan, they take me at the UCLA neuro ward and my doctor is one of the coolest guys i've ever met.

wild crazy red hair, used to be on the national ski team, and seems like at any moment he's going to have a pizza delvered to the room spicoli style then head to the beach.

my mom really grew to love him as well, especally when he told me that he didnt see any reason why i wouldnt be able to snowboard again someday "just prolly not a good idea to fall down too much".

i was ordered to stay in bed and not do [censored] for at least 9months, however my mom has a real distrust of western medicine and so she has all kinds of crazy [censored] rubbed on me (arnica, goldenseal etc...) and in 5 months i'm declared 100% recovered and cleared to be up on my feet.

i wasnt able to play competitive sports anymore, and i was told that while i was not at any greater risk to break my neck again if i did there would be no more room for manuevering so i should keep that in mind when planning vacations and after school activities.

i have a plate and 2 screws in my neck, 2 pretty bad-ass scars (one on the front of my neck which is where they do the entry, and one on my hip).

i also lost about 30% of my lateral range of motion, so its harder for me to snap my head to one side and exclaim "SAY WHAT???"

i later found out that another of my buddies who was on my hockey team and was up in mammoth (not with me) went off the same jump as i did around 30 mins later and totally [censored] up his knee and needed 3 surgeries.

that was the last season at mammoth that they built that jump.

i snowboarded a year later on the anniversary of my accident (12/18/99).

i have some really kick ass x-rays both pre-surgery and post-surgery.

chicks dig scars.

pretty much everything i do that involves moving increases the arthritis in my neck.

[NNNNOOOOONAN]

good read RBK. is there any chance you could post scar pictures?

[Setcho]

Good read. Thank you.

[Peter Harris]

How much did this little operation set you back, or are you in a good ol national health scheme?

Your turns of phrase are very good. Thanks for the read.

[Apathy]

Crazy story man, I had no idea this happened to you.

Very, very funny read:

"its at about this time that some brilliant medical savant makes the bold and controversial statement:

"maybe he shouldn't be moving around"."

"they get me to washoe and the doctors there are much nicer and apparently not restricted by the same levels of secrecy that the doctors at mammoth hospital are."


looool.

I can relate on a much smaller scale to what the doctor at mammoth hospital said to you... some of those dudes are just ridiculous.

[Yeti]

sweet story jonas, i laughed so hard at the spicoli line

[mbillie1]

awesome read man, I lol'd a lot, especially at this:

[ QUOTE ]
my mom really grew to love him as well, especally when he told me that he didnt see any reason why i wouldnt be able to snowboard again someday "just prolly not a good idea to fall down too much".

[/ QUOTE ]

spoken like a true snow monkey [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

[4_2_it]

Great story.

[Popinjay]

[ QUOTE ]

after the first day of recovery i could eat and drink again but no solid foods so i had a lifetime supply of orange sherbet, apparently the hospital had an exclusive sponsorship deal with the flavor orange so that was the only option, and i like orange dont get me wrong but after a while i started to really crave some rainbow.


[/ QUOTE ]

Loved that part. Good story and what would we do without our mothers? I remember how much my mom took care of me when I was in the hospital... and jeez, I love my mom.

[En Passant]

Cool story.