The Backstory
First of all, why I created a blog site: After being emotionally exhausted from telling the story over and over again, I was complaining to a friend who said "Why don't you create a blog site to keep people posted?" and I thought, this could work. So I am thinking I can post updates here so that people don't have to keep calling for news.
So if you haven't heard the accident story, here it is (with a certain grain of salt which comes from the fact that the story came from the person who was involved in the accident, and may be somewhat skewed):
Friday the 13th. Dave is leaving work around 6:15 or so. It's rainy and the roads are wet. He takes a turn on 81 in Killingworth a little too fast, and loses control of the car. In attempting to recover from the skid he oversteers and the car goes skidding into a telephone pole. I'm not sure what the exact placement of the telephone pole vs. car is, but the steering column was so badly mangled that the ignition could not be shut off and the driver side airbag released on the passenger side (and this is why like Dave, you should wear your seatbelt, even if you have airbags in your car). Apparently his legs were somehow wrapped around the telephone pole, the right leg bending normally and the left leg bending not-so normally. At this point, it takes about 20 minutes for EMTs to arrive on the scene.
Now, depending on when you ask Dave, it takes somewhere between 1-3 hours for them to get him out of the car. (It probably was 1 hour but felt like 3). His body is in such a bizarre position that 2 firefighters are holding up his torso as other people are working to extricate him, and apparently they briefly passed out a few times from the heat inside the car. The telephone pole had a live electrical wire, so the entire town of Killingworth was without power during the opening ceremony of the Olympics so they can get the car away from the pole. Once Dave is finally out of the car, they bring him to Middlesex Hospital in an ambulance, and then send him to Hartford Hospital via LifeStar (he said it sucked being in a helicopter and not being able to see out the windows).
Around 9:30 I receive a call from Hartford Hospital telling me he was in an accident and wanted to see me, so I drag the kids out of bed and we go down there. When we arrive, he is in x-ray and I still have no idea what happened (other than he must be conscious). We wait in one of the trauma rooms and they wheel him in. He has an IV, a catheter, his neck is in a stablizing brace (in case of masked spinal injury which is discovered to not be there Saturday morning), his leg is wrapped, and he has scratches all over his face and arms. He hasn't been allowed to eat or drink anything and has been given morphine for his leg (compound fracture of the tibia and fibula from what I could gather, or in layman's terms, the bones were sticking out), so is not entirely coherent. We hang around for a while until they are ready to bring him to the CT scan and then to the OR to put pins in his leg, and then say goodbye for the evening.
The best thing about Hartford Hospital is their communication skills, and the fact that they pay so close attention to patient care. For example, today he said that he thought there might be glass under him and I pulled out a few largish pieces from the hospital bed. I also noticed that he still had a fine spray of glass shards on his chest, since no one had bothered to clean him off. I helped myself to a washcloth from the closet and dampened it and lightly removed the tiny glass fragments from his chest. Also, at this point he has pins sticking out of his leg with an external rod, and so at some point all that has to be put together the way it belongs, but no one has bothered to tell him when this might be planned. So we have no indication how long he is going to be in the hospital.
So here are the frequently asked questions:
Yes, he will be OK, there are no other injuries besides the compound fracture and he will be in a cast for about 6-8 weeks
No, we have no clue when he will be discharged
No, please do not call my house, I appreciate your concern but I do not have any more emotional energy to return phone calls
Yes, he might like visitors or a phone call, the hospital is very boring and unfriendly. Call first and see if the situation changes (because who knows when there will be additional surgery).
Yes, the car is totalled
Yes, we have collision insurance on the car and health insurance
Yes, I will try to update this blog site when I have more news from the hospital, if they ever bother to tell us anything
Yes, he is doing WAY better today, he can talk and sound like his normal self, he can eat and drink normally, his leg still hurts quite a bit though
So if you haven't heard the accident story, here it is (with a certain grain of salt which comes from the fact that the story came from the person who was involved in the accident, and may be somewhat skewed):
Friday the 13th. Dave is leaving work around 6:15 or so. It's rainy and the roads are wet. He takes a turn on 81 in Killingworth a little too fast, and loses control of the car. In attempting to recover from the skid he oversteers and the car goes skidding into a telephone pole. I'm not sure what the exact placement of the telephone pole vs. car is, but the steering column was so badly mangled that the ignition could not be shut off and the driver side airbag released on the passenger side (and this is why like Dave, you should wear your seatbelt, even if you have airbags in your car). Apparently his legs were somehow wrapped around the telephone pole, the right leg bending normally and the left leg bending not-so normally. At this point, it takes about 20 minutes for EMTs to arrive on the scene.
Now, depending on when you ask Dave, it takes somewhere between 1-3 hours for them to get him out of the car. (It probably was 1 hour but felt like 3). His body is in such a bizarre position that 2 firefighters are holding up his torso as other people are working to extricate him, and apparently they briefly passed out a few times from the heat inside the car. The telephone pole had a live electrical wire, so the entire town of Killingworth was without power during the opening ceremony of the Olympics so they can get the car away from the pole. Once Dave is finally out of the car, they bring him to Middlesex Hospital in an ambulance, and then send him to Hartford Hospital via LifeStar (he said it sucked being in a helicopter and not being able to see out the windows).
Around 9:30 I receive a call from Hartford Hospital telling me he was in an accident and wanted to see me, so I drag the kids out of bed and we go down there. When we arrive, he is in x-ray and I still have no idea what happened (other than he must be conscious). We wait in one of the trauma rooms and they wheel him in. He has an IV, a catheter, his neck is in a stablizing brace (in case of masked spinal injury which is discovered to not be there Saturday morning), his leg is wrapped, and he has scratches all over his face and arms. He hasn't been allowed to eat or drink anything and has been given morphine for his leg (compound fracture of the tibia and fibula from what I could gather, or in layman's terms, the bones were sticking out), so is not entirely coherent. We hang around for a while until they are ready to bring him to the CT scan and then to the OR to put pins in his leg, and then say goodbye for the evening.
The best thing about Hartford Hospital is their communication skills, and the fact that they pay so close attention to patient care. For example, today he said that he thought there might be glass under him and I pulled out a few largish pieces from the hospital bed. I also noticed that he still had a fine spray of glass shards on his chest, since no one had bothered to clean him off. I helped myself to a washcloth from the closet and dampened it and lightly removed the tiny glass fragments from his chest. Also, at this point he has pins sticking out of his leg with an external rod, and so at some point all that has to be put together the way it belongs, but no one has bothered to tell him when this might be planned. So we have no indication how long he is going to be in the hospital.
So here are the frequently asked questions:
Yes, he will be OK, there are no other injuries besides the compound fracture and he will be in a cast for about 6-8 weeks
No, we have no clue when he will be discharged
No, please do not call my house, I appreciate your concern but I do not have any more emotional energy to return phone calls
Yes, he might like visitors or a phone call, the hospital is very boring and unfriendly. Call first and see if the situation changes (because who knows when there will be additional surgery).
Yes, the car is totalled
Yes, we have collision insurance on the car and health insurance
Yes, I will try to update this blog site when I have more news from the hospital, if they ever bother to tell us anything
Yes, he is doing WAY better today, he can talk and sound like his normal self, he can eat and drink normally, his leg still hurts quite a bit though
posted by Rebecca at 9:42 PM
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