clutchdust
Millionaire Playboy
have to post this here too.
some of you may remember and some of you may be new. either way, i think this is a valuable reminder so that i, hopefully (if you listen), will be the only board member who ever suffers such a fate.
without going into all the gory details, let me simply say that in the event you are ever out in your vette and have a stall or break-down, please, please, please get assistance in getting your car out of the road.
such was not the case with me. after mine stalled on me one day, i thought i'd just get it rolling and jump in and pop the clutch. who here hasn't done that with some car at some point?
so with the car rolling at a good jogging speed, i jumped but my car had other ideas. see, those big fat tires we all love because of how mean they make our cars look really are mean. and they're only inches away from your feet. in my case, a very small miscalculation on my part resulted in my left foot hitting the rear tire and then being dragged under it. i really can't explain much of what happened next as it happened pretty fast, relatively speaking, and i was a little weirded out by the entire situation. so my left foot went under the car and my right leg came down inside the car and wedged between the seat and doorsill. at this point, i was literally just along for the ride. after what could have been 3 seconds or 3 minutes the car finally came to a stop and then ever so slowly rolled back off my foot, which miraculously was still attached to my left leg.
the results were pretty brutal. the maleolous(?), which is the knuckle thingy on the inside of your ankle, well, i left mine spread out on the asphalt. all the surrounding tendons, veins, muscle and skin were also ripped out of the immediate area.
the entire recovery, which will never EVER be a full recovery, took between 18-24 months. i am now about as good as i will ever be, and that i would put at about 90% articulation and 75% strength.
this is the initial picture taken at the very first cleaning of the wound after my ankle was "reattached".
warning: this is a graphic picture. some people in the past have had trouble viewing this damage. please do not click if you find the pictures below disturbing.
http://www.photohost.org/gallery/data/500/182ankle1.jpg
at this point, the depth of the wound is approximately 1/4" below the surface of the surrounding tissue. the kind of whitish granular looking thing at the top of the wound is the open bone and marrow of the tibia. the long white thing running lengthwise is a tendon that attaches, well, i'm not sure if it's attached to anything anymore.
the doctors had to pull my foot farther apart in surgery to clean rocks and debris out of the joint and try to put the cartilage back where it was supposed to be. at this time they also drilled two holes in my foot bone (talon, i think) and two holes in my tibia and installed pins and an external fixture to immobilize the joint.
here's the cleaned up wound with me resting at home on the couch after being released from my 10 day hospital stay.
the black thing you can see in the top left of the picture is the external fixer. what they have inside the wound is the is thing called a "wound vac". it's a foam that's stuffed into the wound with a plastic sheet over top. then a small hole is punctured and a tube is stuck over the hole and attached to this vacuum device. the idea, as they explained it to me, was to provide a small vacuum to help promote blood flow and healing in the affected area.
i had this thing for something like 4 to 5 months. even after they removed the fixer and i had a cast, they had to cut a window in the cast for bandage changes. and let me tell you, that was the worst part, even worse than the actual injury. i had to have these bandages changed every other day and it was like murder.
finally, after something like 5 months, here's the wound finally closed up.
at this point, i was still using a cane any time i left the house. it would be another six months before i could go any real distance without some kind of walking aid.
this is the deformed ankle two years out.
it will never, ever look normal. nor will it ever operate as normal. i still have pretty good mobility and i walk for exercise on a regular basis, but after 4-5 miles, it hurts like hell.
so finally, do not ever take this chance! you need to learn this lesson without repeating it! i don't ever want to read some other member post about a hospital stay for the same thing. be careful out there, and don't be too proud to ask for help.
some of you may remember and some of you may be new. either way, i think this is a valuable reminder so that i, hopefully (if you listen), will be the only board member who ever suffers such a fate.
without going into all the gory details, let me simply say that in the event you are ever out in your vette and have a stall or break-down, please, please, please get assistance in getting your car out of the road.
such was not the case with me. after mine stalled on me one day, i thought i'd just get it rolling and jump in and pop the clutch. who here hasn't done that with some car at some point?
so with the car rolling at a good jogging speed, i jumped but my car had other ideas. see, those big fat tires we all love because of how mean they make our cars look really are mean. and they're only inches away from your feet. in my case, a very small miscalculation on my part resulted in my left foot hitting the rear tire and then being dragged under it. i really can't explain much of what happened next as it happened pretty fast, relatively speaking, and i was a little weirded out by the entire situation. so my left foot went under the car and my right leg came down inside the car and wedged between the seat and doorsill. at this point, i was literally just along for the ride. after what could have been 3 seconds or 3 minutes the car finally came to a stop and then ever so slowly rolled back off my foot, which miraculously was still attached to my left leg.
the results were pretty brutal. the maleolous(?), which is the knuckle thingy on the inside of your ankle, well, i left mine spread out on the asphalt. all the surrounding tendons, veins, muscle and skin were also ripped out of the immediate area.
the entire recovery, which will never EVER be a full recovery, took between 18-24 months. i am now about as good as i will ever be, and that i would put at about 90% articulation and 75% strength.
this is the initial picture taken at the very first cleaning of the wound after my ankle was "reattached".
warning: this is a graphic picture. some people in the past have had trouble viewing this damage. please do not click if you find the pictures below disturbing.
http://www.photohost.org/gallery/data/500/182ankle1.jpg
at this point, the depth of the wound is approximately 1/4" below the surface of the surrounding tissue. the kind of whitish granular looking thing at the top of the wound is the open bone and marrow of the tibia. the long white thing running lengthwise is a tendon that attaches, well, i'm not sure if it's attached to anything anymore.
the doctors had to pull my foot farther apart in surgery to clean rocks and debris out of the joint and try to put the cartilage back where it was supposed to be. at this time they also drilled two holes in my foot bone (talon, i think) and two holes in my tibia and installed pins and an external fixture to immobilize the joint.
here's the cleaned up wound with me resting at home on the couch after being released from my 10 day hospital stay.
the black thing you can see in the top left of the picture is the external fixer. what they have inside the wound is the is thing called a "wound vac". it's a foam that's stuffed into the wound with a plastic sheet over top. then a small hole is punctured and a tube is stuck over the hole and attached to this vacuum device. the idea, as they explained it to me, was to provide a small vacuum to help promote blood flow and healing in the affected area.
i had this thing for something like 4 to 5 months. even after they removed the fixer and i had a cast, they had to cut a window in the cast for bandage changes. and let me tell you, that was the worst part, even worse than the actual injury. i had to have these bandages changed every other day and it was like murder.
finally, after something like 5 months, here's the wound finally closed up.
at this point, i was still using a cane any time i left the house. it would be another six months before i could go any real distance without some kind of walking aid.
this is the deformed ankle two years out.
it will never, ever look normal. nor will it ever operate as normal. i still have pretty good mobility and i walk for exercise on a regular basis, but after 4-5 miles, it hurts like hell.
so finally, do not ever take this chance! you need to learn this lesson without repeating it! i don't ever want to read some other member post about a hospital stay for the same thing. be careful out there, and don't be too proud to ask for help.
Last edited:
:clobbered::banned:
that and modern decent tires, is why I don't carry a spare anymore....
