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Re: [OM] (OT) Need that Positive Energy Again

Subject: Re: [OM] (OT) Need that Positive Energy Again
From: Nicholas Herndon <nherndon@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 09:46:16 -0600
Yikes!  Glad to hear your son Chris is doing okay.
As a person who occasionally enjoys riding his bicycle long distances on
country roads, stories like this really piss me off...but at least the
driver stopped.  Cyclists are incredibly vulnerable, and when I ride I try
to keep my head on a swivel, but there's not a whole lot you can do when
someone is bearing down on you at freeway speeds.
I'll say a quick prayer for Chris and his recovery.
Bob, I'll say a quick prayer for Ben as well.

-Nick



> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 21:26:51 +1100
> From: Andrew Fildes <afildes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: Re: [OM] (OT) Need that Positive Energy Again
> To: Olympus Camera Discussion <olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Message-ID: <4291ADB8-7860-48E9-973A-E53037761D1F@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
> 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
> afildes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
>
>
-- 
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