Well, here's the aftermath of the whole incident. The little black bike I'm standing next to is what remained of my wife's Kawasaki ER6F.

The Insurance Company has decided that they would rather buy it from me than try and fix it, so maybe once the aerial is removed from my right leg, we'll be buying a newer one...Who knows?

All I can really add is the fact that I praise God for the fact that this photo shows me standing next to the bike with only a broken leg!

I've obviously had plenty of opportunity to think about what happened, but I've also had the opportunity to think of what could have happened! Scary when you start thinking of that! Fortunately, my wife and I went through a counseling course a while back and one of the first things they taught us, with regard to trauma counseling, is that it is important to focus on what actually happened and forget about what could have happened.

The main reason for this is the fact that the mind would drive you crazy!

Anyway...Obviously, since the accident is still in the forefront of my life, I've been concentrating on sharing these experiences with you, but now that we're on the road to recovery, we'll start getting back to sharing some other experiences again.

See you soon...

...Part 3

Sorry that Part 3 of the "saga" has taken so long to post, but I was having some problems concentrating on getting things done with all the pain killers and stuff going through my system. Anyway...here it finally is...Part 3!

A block from the Hospital, Jan (the driver of the Ambulance) informed me that Pretoria drivers were very courteous, because a lady in a smallish car had just moved off the road to let him pass. When I asked him to describe the car...Guess who? Yip, the wife!

Outside Casualties/Trauma, I was "cuddled" in a blanket to make sure that I did not catch frost bite or something, because it had become quite chilly in Pretoria and I was lying on a stretcher with nothing more than the remains of my denim and a pair of underpants! What made up for all this was seeing my wife and kids outside the ambulance.

Family reunion and transfer of private property took place outside the ambulance, along with some emotional thank you's for the ambulance personnel who had taken such good care of me and then I was wheeled into the Hospital.

Sometimes one just has to look carefully at the signs around you to realise how fortunate you are, because as I was wheeled into the Casualty at Wilgers Hospital in Pretoria, someone else was busy taking care of the remains of a person who didn't make it. Yes, you guessed it...they were busy wheeling out someone in a body bag!

I was placed in the Orthopedic ward that same evening and by about 11:15pm everything was organised and sorted. I slept a little "fitfully" to say the least, until they started giving me pain killers through the drip! I'm sure the pain killers were organised by the Borg (Star Trek something-or-other), because once they introduced the pain killers into the drip line...
"Relaxation is inevitable!!"

Thursday evening (day after the accident), just before visiting hour, I was suddenly whisked off to the theatre and they explained that they were going to do a "Closed Reduction" of the leg...which, of course, meant very little to me until I woke up and found that they had pulled and twisted and bent the leg back into shape and put everything in a plaster cast. Fortunately they did all of this under anesthetic.

The main reason for this was apparently to make sure that everything is as straight as possible by the time I could be operated on. It was also done to make sure that the parts were properly aligned and set up and stuff...Technical terminology, which makes sense only to the Medically inclined, was used a this point.

I had to lie around in the Hospital for a whole week before the swelling had subsided sufficiently for the Doc to be willing to operate and see what he could do with all the spares that were left in the leg. When I awoke from that lot I knew that I had been operated on, because the pain was tremendous. It was so bad I nearly agreed that the Anesthetist could give me a spinal block to relieve the pain, until I realised it meant he would have to inject stuff into my spine! That freaked me out more than the pain, so I decided against it.

Anyway...another couple of days later and here I am in my own bed...at home...finishing off the lat part of the saga for you. I'll probably revisit the saga in the near future, because if this experience has given me anything, it has been the time to consider and think on those things that are important to me and that make life worth living.

More later...

...Part 2...

Well, it wasn't to be quite so straight forward in the end. Once we got to the Clinic in Ermelo I was first questioned thoroughly regarding the condition of my body and where I was having aches and pains, etc. Then I was subjected to a number of x-rays of various parts of my body, including some areas where aches and pains were not reported but the medical staff obviously thought they were likely to have occurred.

During all of this and on my way to x-rays, I phoned my wife and informed her of the
accident. She took it well and I think this made it even more difficult for me to keep it all together, so I lost it and became all "soppy". I knew I had a strong wife, who would be able to take certain things, but I also know that she was going to need support, just like the rest of us, at some stage.

All the time in the Clinic, I seemed to be suffering from hypothermia, because I could not stop myself from shivering every now and then. You know, like when you've rained wet on a cold day and you get these shivers every now and then that you just can't seem to control?

The staff at the clinic then hooked me up to a heater system of some sort that blows warm air through a special blanket which covers you from shoulder to toe...Apparently called a "Bear Hugger Blanket" or something of that sort.

Anyway...after some discussions and deliberations it became clear that the Doctors in Ermelo were not going to be able to treat me, so I was told that I needed to be transferred to a Pretoria Hospital. Unfortunately, one of the issues that came up was that the ambulance company would have to be guaranteed of payment upon transfer.

Now there's a bit of a problem, because not everyone I know carries around R 6000 in his/her pocket just in case they may have to be transported from some small town to another in an ambulance. While I was wondering how I was going to get hold of sufficient funding to arange for the transfer, one of the ambulance guys came in and told me we were going to Pretoria after all.

Turns out, the local bike club (The Panthers) had heard of my "plight" and had decided amongst themselves to loan me the R 6000. Their President, Lardus Botha, had organised with all the Committee members, wrote a check for the full amount and handed it to the ambulance company! And people want me to believe that Bikers won't stand together, hey?

The most painful part of the whole episode then followed while they were preparing me for transport, because they were working on a leg that had multiple fractures above the ankle while NOT giving me the option of medication. Hmmm...really wasn't much fun, I can tell you!

The accident happened around 4pm and by 7pm all of the above had been finished and we were on our way...closer to home!

Accident...Part 1

Because this story is quite long, I'm going to break it into parts to make it easier to read and follow. Well, here goes...

It's 2 o clock on a Saturday morning and I can't seem to sleep any more. I've been sleeping very badly the last couple of nights, but maybe that's what happens when one is stuck in Hospital.

Yip...I came short on the bike on Wednesday afternoon on my way home from a little place called Piet Retief. I was in the process of overtaking a bakkie (pick-up for those that speak a different form of English) just before a town called Ermelo when the person, driving the vehicle I was overtaking, decided that this would be a good time to turn into a farm...on my side of the road!

Fortunately for me, in the bigger scheme of things, I lost control of the bike under braking, because the road was wet, and I fell off the bike. I say it was fortunate because if I had tried to "save" the bike and keep it up straight, I would probably have hit the bakkie or the trailer behind it, leaving me with far greater injuries than those I ended up with.

Anyway, needless to say, I came off second best in the event. Maybe I came third, but I won't be able to judge this until I've seen what the bike looks like. What makes the whole thing worse, is the fact that I was riding my wife's bike at the time of the accident and mine was "safely" parked at home!

After the proverbial dust settled (it couldn't, because it was raining, remember?) one of the first thoughts that went through my head when I came to a halt was: "Lord, this was really not necessary...but thank You that I am now in Your hands and that you will look after my family!" I wasn't thinking this because I thought I was going to die, but purely from the point of view that I knew my wife would need some support right there, because I was about 250km from home and I needed to let her know at some stage that I had been in an accident.

I then realised that I had some severe pain in certain places...more severe than would/should have been normal under these circumstances, so I started taking stock of body parts and their condition. The part that hurt the most was my right lower leg, which made sense when I saw, first of all, that one wheel of the trailer was standing on the toe of my boot. Secondly, Once they'd moved the trailer off my foot, I realised that there was another problem when my foot wouldn't move along with the rest of my leg.

After further stock taking of body parts and their condition, I realised that this seemed to be the worst of my injuries, although there were other parts of my body that were seriously shouting to get my attention! Both elbows were bruised, but could be moved without any additional discomfort. My other leg was ok, as was my neck and back and chest.

Then it started to rain again, with the odd piece of small hail in between to make matters a little more uncomfortable than they already were. The people on the scene asked whether they could call someone on my behalf and whether there was anything else they could do to get me more comfortable. One thing I decided right away was that it would probably be best if I phoned my wife personally to tell her about the accident, because I believe it's best that she hear my voice rather than that of a stranger. (Also, in situatoins like this, you don't know how people are going to phrase the message, do you?)

Still at the scene, with the rain coming down sporadically, somebody got the bright idea to take a tarpaulin and cover me with that so that I would not get wetter than I already was. That's where my sense of humour started working again, because, as soon as I was covered, I peeked out from underneath and asked them to please remind the ambulance personnel that I was alive under the tarp, because I was not sure what they would think when they arrived on the scene and found me like that!

When the ambulance arrived at the scene, about 15 minutes later, I first thanked the Lord for the fact that I fell near a small town where virtually all the people know one another and where it was possible to have an ambulance on the scene within such a short period of time! The one Paramedic asked me whether I was allergic to anything and the first thing on my list was "TAR"! This helped assure the Paramedic that I was reasonably ok, except for the hurting bits.

They (The Paramedics) then went to work on getting me sorted and assessing all my injuries on scene. This also meant that they cut my best denim to shreds, along with the rain suit pants and "long johns" I had on underneath. As the one guy mentioned at that stage...it wasn't such a loss, because they had all borne the brunt of my fall and were in need of some form of disposal anyway!

Looking back at the situation, I now understand that they do this in order to leave the patient as comfortable as possible, because they would have hurt me more if they had tried to "salvage" my clothes and undress me properly at the scene.

Anyway...regardless of the pain I was experiencing at the time, I realised that these guys did a fantastic job on the scene, specifically considering the conditions under which they had to work.

Once they had me stabilised they transfered me to one of those backboard jobs and put me into the ambulance to transport me to the nearest Mediclinic so that a "proper" Doctor could get a look at me and they could decide what needed to be done with me. I was hopng it would be something like..."Let's put some plaster cast on the leg and drop him off at home!", or something like that.........