Blimmin' 'eck, Andrew!
I/we feel your shakiness . . . and gratitude for that smile.
I bet he's cross at being locked up:-)
Let's hear it also for honest people admitting to their mistakes.
Chris
On 21 Jan 2012, at 10:26, Andrew Fildes wrote:
> Good luck. My experience in the last week has been positive so I hope it rubs
> off.
> Must be a #2 son thing.
> After nine years of riding 42km per day (26 miles) to and from work, my
> second son Chris was hit by a delivery van on Friday afternoon 8 days ago.
> The screen in the emergency room displayed a grim brevity - 'Cyclist vs.
> Truck - high speed'. The impact was a straight 80kph (50mph) from behind. He
> was quite astonishingly lucky - four broken ribs and a punctured lung, three
> cracked vertebrae and a lot of scrapes. Helmets are compulsory here, thank
> goodness. But head-butting the scenery at that speed has implications - in
> this case some contusions of the forebrain. He was agitated and confused
> going into intensive care and lost three days memory. His post traumatic
> amnesia is classified as severe but he seems to be coming out of it very
> well. His level of fitness is extremely high and that may have saved him. In
> fact he rather annoyed them in the intensive care unit by getting up and
> going for a stroll. Being confused, he tended to get lost.
> Last weekend was possibly the worst of my life. I feel like we've dodged a
> very large bullet indeed. I'm still a bit shaky thinking about it. He's now
> in a rehab centre and because of his earlier tendency to wander, they've put
> in a locked, high dependency ward for a few days at first. I hope he takes
> time to take a close look at the others in there - the serious brain injury
> patients. And thinks what might have been. He should be over the short term
> memory problem quite soon. I hope.
> One of the best things I did was to take a few pix each day - #1 son in the
> UK said he thought it was in bad taste but was seriously relieved when he saw
> the smile on day three and promptly posted it on his Facebook wall. Small
> gallery here -
> http://www.pbase.com/afildes/chrishospital
>
> We live in a semi-rural area but the police were there in five, the
> paramedics in eight and he was inside one of the best trauma units in the
> country in 80 minutes - and it's nearly 50k away. Any further out or any
> sicker and they'd have used a helo. Car registration here is quite expensive
> because it includes compulsory accident insurance - all medical costs are
> covered and they'll pay him 80% of his average pay for the forseeable future,
> even if you're a cyclist or pedestrian. It's a decent system. There were nice
> touches like the paramedics waiting to talk to us at the emergency bay about
> the circumstances. They were quite surprised that he survived at all.
>
> Oh - and yes, the driver stopped. He's has been charged. Careless driving
> occasioning GBH. He'd driven for four hours across the state without a break
> and didn't see him. The cop I spoke to later was a little underimpressed by
> that.
> Andrew Fildes
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