The Grand Cloud

I had a terrible bike accident that tuned into a major ordeal. I was coming down the hill way to fast on my bike when I fell off the trail in a patch of soft dirt and went flying over the handlebars. I was clipped into my pedals and did not come out in time to catch my self. I ended up taking the entire crash in the face (I am not sure what I did with my hands).

What happened after was worst then the accident itself.  I was treated in two regional hospitals that almost killed me.  The my life was saved at a third hospital.   Sadly I found you can not trust our modern medical establishment.  What I learned after is every nurse and doctor should know the ABC’s of keeping someone alive – airway, breathing and circulation.  What is scary is two of the hospitals I visited almost killed me by ignore this basic principal.   If you don’t mind gory pictures, there are more details and some pictures after the jump.

I first went to a small regional hospital.  They immediately tried to strap me to a back board.  I start waving my hands and motioning for help.  The nurse thought I was going crazy.  Luckly my wife understood I needed something and got me a piece of paper.  I simply wrote — suck the blood out of my mouth!  When they went to strap me down I was still bleeding and would have drowned in my own blood.  They put a suction tube in my mouth and then strapped me down.  After taking some scans they determined luckily I had not broken my neck or back.  They then sent me the Logan regional hospital, about an hour away.

In the Logan hospital I had an incredible plastic surgeon stitch my face up.  He spent over three hours putting in over a hundred stitches.  I had pulled the lip entirely away from the gum which required the most stitches.  He did interwoven layers of stitches, like bricks, inside my mouth so it would completely seal shut.  Although I was very blessed to have a great plastic surgen, the rest of the hospital staff was not.

The first and scariest part of the visit to the Logan hospital was I was never seen by an emergency room doctor, which I still don’t understand.   The nurse only came in a couple of times.  I got one shoot of morphine but she wouldn’t give me any more.  About half way though the surgery I woke up in excruciating pain, the morphine gone from my system.  I asked for help, but got none.  For the next hour I laid on the table feeling the surgeon pull on my face, trying to get it back together.  My back and neck killed from the accident and laying on bed that was too short for me.  My mouth was so dry I felt like I was going to die from dehydration.  The worst part is I learned after this was all preventable.   They make mouth swabs, a little sponge on the end of a stick to keep patients mouths from dehydrating.  There should have at least been a nurse in the room during the surgery to help out.

After the surgeon was done the nurse came back in with some pills and a cup of water.  I told her I don’t think I can swallow anything.  She got mad and told me I had to take the pills. What is so scary about this is it should have clued her of to something being wrong with my airways, the first thing any ER nurse or doctor should look for. Instead they just sent me home.

A day later I still couldn’t eat and it was getting more difficult to breath. I went into a third hospital emergency room, the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. The care I received there was nothing short of miraculous. They quite literally save my life. What they discovered and the previous two hospitals completely missed was the fact that my tongue and neck where so swollen it was blocking off my airways.  They where quite shocked the Logan hospital had even released my in such a state.

Also I had developed cellulitis in the throat and this had spread down my neck.   The combination of trauma to the face and neck along with the cellulitis was causing massive swelling in the throat. I was immediately rushed to the trauma room.  I was partially put under using ketamine, which also relaxes the airways.  The doctors then struggled to get a breathing tube down my throat.  My airways where so swollen at that point they where close to having to perform a tracheotomy.

After I was stabilized I was sent to the medical intensive care unit and put on a heavy does of steroids and antibotics that helped reduce the swelling.  I stayed in the ICU for a while until I was able to breath on my own.  After that I had to stay in the hospital for a couple of days until the could get the cellulitis in control.  What happens with cellulitis is it can quickly spread through the body and will actually kill you.

By all measures what I experienced was nothing short of a miracle that I am alive and can still work.  I had a lot of family friends praying for me which helped me survive the tragedy and quickly recover.  This experience was quite literally like a trip through hell.  It was the darkest, scariest hours of my life.  I was so blessed to have my wife by my side the whole time, she is truly an angel.

Here is me shortly after the accident.

The worst part was the hospital stay.  Being stuck in a hospital bed with a breathing tube was almost worst than the accident itself.

Here is the CT scan they did after inserting the breathing tube in my mouth.  I found out after I was used as a case study of how to keep ER paitents alive.   You can see in the picture that my tounge was and throat where so swollen they where close to shutting of my airway.  At this point only my breathing tube is keeping me alive.  At the bottom of the breathing tube is how much space the rest of the air way should have.

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