Friday, March 19, 2010
4 YEARS ON.....
Been a while since any sort of posting on the blog.
I think that between having our son Tom around, working, being back at photography school, preparing us and the car for the outback trip in April and trying to maintain some semblence of a social life, the old blog has become somewhat neglected.
Like on a favourite toy that now sits in the corner abandoned. Its layer of dust gradually becoming thicker and thicker with each day, slowly covering a distant memory until only its vague outline betrays its existence and once past companionship.
Occasionally I have agonised over my lack of posting, only to have my attention violently tugged towards my son's newly discovered ability to babble, or some other thing that is happening in our lives.
Somehow the poor old blog just seemed to get put on the backburner every time.
Maybe it has served its purpose, whatever that was. Come to think of it, the purpose originally was to document our escapades on the motorcycles. Funny how it's changed over time eh?
A couple of days ago I was contemplating the 4 year anniversary of that crash on the 18th of March 2006, which turned my life inside out and upside down.
From being scraped off the bitumen by the paramedics, airflited to the trauma ward, the subsequent half a year of hospitalisation including being bedbound for two months, the relearning of how to walk, to the numerous surgeries right up until last October to finally being able to run again as of last Christmas.
I looked at how different my life is now. Married with a beautiful wife and child, studying photography, enjoying life in general.
With those thoughts running through my head I left work yesterday only to pull over about 200 metres up the road.
On the roundabout was a delivery truck. It was stopped in the middle of the roundabout and my initial thought was that it had either a mechanical failure of some sort or there had been a collision with another vehicle.
As I slowly drove around it I saw what the truck had collided with.
A motorcyclist was lying on the road in front/underneath it, his bike some distance back lying underneath the truck.
It must have just happened as there were two cars that had only just stopped and one woman was getting out of her car.
I pulled over and went to see the rider and was pleasantly surprised that he was conscious.
1/3rd of his back was a bright crimson due to the flanelette shirt having instantly parted company and his skin having been souvenired by the bitumen. Given a lot of his inappropriate clothing had torn away I was able to see some serious bruising around his right hip area as well.
I figured he had sustained some fairly heavy knocks and probably had some fractures and potentially some internal injuries. ( later confirmed by the paramedics as fractures in the clavicle, ribs and pelvis plus bruising, abrasions, cuts, possible internal, spine and neck injuries)
Someone had rung the ambulance and there was a man standing by so I asked him to wave the passing cars on so none would run into us while we attended to the rider.
My recently completed first aid course came into good use indeed and I began to implement what I had learnt.
Thankfully he could wriggle his toes and fingers and didn't seem to think he had much pain in his spine or neck.
I explained to him that he had injuries on his back and hip area and that I know exactly how he feels right now. I also told him he should have been wearing leather, to which he replied that it was too hot. Well, there's the trade off then isn't. Too hot but keep your skin on, versus nice and cool and no skin. Not much of a choice really I reckon.
He was lying in a kind of 45 degree angle and moving around a lot. I wanted him to roll onto his side, in case he decided to vomit into his helmet, but he found that way too painful and preferred to roll onto his back. As he did so he let out an anguished cry and I realised that he sustained some serious pelvic fractures, so I supported his right leg in the most comfortable position.
The woman who pulled up earlier was still there so I asked her to get his phone from the bag on his bike so we could call his family. I spoke to his sister and gave her directions on how to get to where we were.
From there on I just comforted him and kept talking to him until the paramdics arrived.
Once they started attending to his injuries I was left still holding his leg in position and helping the medics, talking to the rider, making sure he doesn't nod off from the morphine and eventually seeing him off as he was loaded onto the stretcher.
I said to the senior paramedic that it was 4 years ago that I was in the rider's position and that it was quite bizarre to now be on the other side and seeing it from such a different perspective.
What a strange way to mark the 4 year anniversary.
.
I think that between having our son Tom around, working, being back at photography school, preparing us and the car for the outback trip in April and trying to maintain some semblence of a social life, the old blog has become somewhat neglected.
Like on a favourite toy that now sits in the corner abandoned. Its layer of dust gradually becoming thicker and thicker with each day, slowly covering a distant memory until only its vague outline betrays its existence and once past companionship.
Occasionally I have agonised over my lack of posting, only to have my attention violently tugged towards my son's newly discovered ability to babble, or some other thing that is happening in our lives.
Somehow the poor old blog just seemed to get put on the backburner every time.
Maybe it has served its purpose, whatever that was. Come to think of it, the purpose originally was to document our escapades on the motorcycles. Funny how it's changed over time eh?
A couple of days ago I was contemplating the 4 year anniversary of that crash on the 18th of March 2006, which turned my life inside out and upside down.
From being scraped off the bitumen by the paramedics, airflited to the trauma ward, the subsequent half a year of hospitalisation including being bedbound for two months, the relearning of how to walk, to the numerous surgeries right up until last October to finally being able to run again as of last Christmas.
I looked at how different my life is now. Married with a beautiful wife and child, studying photography, enjoying life in general.
With those thoughts running through my head I left work yesterday only to pull over about 200 metres up the road.
On the roundabout was a delivery truck. It was stopped in the middle of the roundabout and my initial thought was that it had either a mechanical failure of some sort or there had been a collision with another vehicle.
As I slowly drove around it I saw what the truck had collided with.
A motorcyclist was lying on the road in front/underneath it, his bike some distance back lying underneath the truck.
It must have just happened as there were two cars that had only just stopped and one woman was getting out of her car.
I pulled over and went to see the rider and was pleasantly surprised that he was conscious.
1/3rd of his back was a bright crimson due to the flanelette shirt having instantly parted company and his skin having been souvenired by the bitumen. Given a lot of his inappropriate clothing had torn away I was able to see some serious bruising around his right hip area as well.
I figured he had sustained some fairly heavy knocks and probably had some fractures and potentially some internal injuries. ( later confirmed by the paramedics as fractures in the clavicle, ribs and pelvis plus bruising, abrasions, cuts, possible internal, spine and neck injuries)
Someone had rung the ambulance and there was a man standing by so I asked him to wave the passing cars on so none would run into us while we attended to the rider.
My recently completed first aid course came into good use indeed and I began to implement what I had learnt.
Thankfully he could wriggle his toes and fingers and didn't seem to think he had much pain in his spine or neck.
I explained to him that he had injuries on his back and hip area and that I know exactly how he feels right now. I also told him he should have been wearing leather, to which he replied that it was too hot. Well, there's the trade off then isn't. Too hot but keep your skin on, versus nice and cool and no skin. Not much of a choice really I reckon.
He was lying in a kind of 45 degree angle and moving around a lot. I wanted him to roll onto his side, in case he decided to vomit into his helmet, but he found that way too painful and preferred to roll onto his back. As he did so he let out an anguished cry and I realised that he sustained some serious pelvic fractures, so I supported his right leg in the most comfortable position.
The woman who pulled up earlier was still there so I asked her to get his phone from the bag on his bike so we could call his family. I spoke to his sister and gave her directions on how to get to where we were.
From there on I just comforted him and kept talking to him until the paramdics arrived.
Once they started attending to his injuries I was left still holding his leg in position and helping the medics, talking to the rider, making sure he doesn't nod off from the morphine and eventually seeing him off as he was loaded onto the stretcher.
I said to the senior paramedic that it was 4 years ago that I was in the rider's position and that it was quite bizarre to now be on the other side and seeing it from such a different perspective.
What a strange way to mark the 4 year anniversary.
.
